The Black Cat (1934)
The Black Cat is a 1934 American pre-Code horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi. It was Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year, and was the first of eight films (six of which were produced by Universal) to feature both Karloff and Lugosi. In 1941, Lugosi appeared in a comedy horror mystery film with the same title, which was also named after and ostensibly "suggested by" Edgar Allan Poe's short story.
The film was among the earlier movies with an almost continuous music score, and it helped to create and popularize the psychological horror subgenre by emphasizing atmosphere, eerie sounds, the darker side of the human psyche, and emotions like fear and guilt to deliver its scares.
Plot
On their honeymoon in Hungary, American mystery novelist Peter Alison and his new wife Joan are told that, due to a mix-up, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a Hungarian psychiatrist, who says he is traveling to see an old friend. As the night wears on, the couple learn that Werdegast left home 18 years earlier to fight in World War I and has not seen his wife since, as he spent the last 15 years in an infamous prison camp in Siberia.
In the dark and rain, Peter, Joan, Werdegast, and Thamal, Werdegast's servant, transfer to a small bus. When they are near Werdegast's destination, the remote home that Austrian architect Hjalmar Poelzig built upon the ruins of Fort Marmorus, the driver of the bus loses control and drives off the road. He is killed in the crash and Joan is injured, but Peter, Werdegast, and Thamal are well enough to take her to Poelzig's house.
After treating Joan's injury, Werdegast and Poelzig go to speak privately. Werdegast says he has come for revenge, as he knows Poelzig betrayed Fort Marmorus, which Poelzig commanded, to the Russians, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Austro-Hungarian soldiers and Werdegast's imprisonment, and stole his wife and daughter, both named Karen, after telling them he was dead. As Peter enters and attempts to intervene, Poelzig's black cat walks by and Werdegast, who suffers from severe ailurophobia, kills it with a thrown knife. Just then, Joan enters, behaving erratically because of an injection of the tranquilizing drug hyoscine that Werdegast had given her.
The guests go to their rooms, and Poelzig, carrying a black cat, surveys a "collection" of preserved dead women on display in glass cases in his basement. He brings Werdegast to see one of the women, who Werdegast recognizes as his wife, and says she died of pneumonia two years after the war, also revealing that the younger Karen is also dead. Heartbroken, Werdegast almost shoots Poelzig, but he is spooked by the cat, and Poelzig says they should wait to have their confrontation until after the Alisons leave. The men part, and Poelzig joins Werdegast's daughter Karen, who is alive and is his wife, in bed. Instructing her to not leave the room the next day, he opens a book titled The Rites of Lucifer.
In the morning, Joan awakens feeling well, and she and Peter hope to leave that day. Werdegast confronts Poelzig about how he is looking at Joan, and Poelzig mentions a ceremony scheduled for that night and admits he intends for her to stay. He and Werdegast play a game of chess to decide the fate of the Alisons, and, after losing, Werdegast has Thamal help place Peter in a cell in the basement and lock Joan in her room. Karen later stumbles upon Joan, who tells Karen that Werdegast is still alive, but the women are caught by Poelzig. He and Karen exit and Joan hears Karen scream.
That night, Poelzig's cult gathers at his house. Joan is brought in and, as Poelzig approaches her, a female acolyte sees something which causes her to scream and faint. Taking advantage of the distraction, Werdegast and Thamal grab Joan and carry her away. Thamal is shot by Poelzig's servant before dispatching him, and Werdegast urges Joan to forget about Peter and escape. She tells him that his daughter is alive and married to Poelzig, and he rushes off, finding Karen dead on a slab. Poelzig enters and the adversaries fight. A dying Thamal helps Werdegast overpowers Poelzig and shackles him to his embalming rack, and Werdegast begins to skin Poelzig alive.
Peter escapes from his cell and looks for Joan. He finds Werdegast crouching next to her to help tear a key from Thamal's dead hand, but thinks Werdegast is attacking her, so he shoots the psychiatrist. Fatally wounded, Werdegast tells the couple to leave and ignites demolition charges left over from when the house was a military installation, destroying the building and eradicating Poelzig's cult.
Having just experienced an unbelievable adventure, on the trip home, Peter and Joan read a review of his latest novel, which complains that the plot is too far-fetched.
Cast
Boris Karloff (credited as Karloff) as Hjalmar Poelzig, an architect and former friend of Werdegast who is secretly keeping Karen and her daughter with in his house.
Béla Lugosi as Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a doctor and WWI veteran who returns to find his wife and faces off against Poelzig.
David Manners as Peter Alison, a writer and Joan's Husband
Jacqueline Wells (later known as Julie Bishop) as Joan Alison, Peter's wife who is captured by Poelzig.
Lucille Lund as Karen Poelzig (née Werdegast), Poelzig's wife and Werdegast's daughter (Lund also plays the corpse of Karen's mother, who was also named Karen)
Egon Brecher as The Majordomo, Poelzig's servant
Harry Cording as Thamal, Werdegast's servant
Henry Armetta as The Sergeant who investigates the bus crash
Albert Conti as The Lieutenant who investigates the bus crash
George Davis as the bus driver for Hotel Hungaria—Gömbös (uncredited)
Anna Duncan as Poelzig's maid (uncredited)
John Carradine as the cult member who plays the organ (uncredited)[5]
Production
Although Edgar Allan Poe is given a "suggested by" credit, the film has little to do with his 1843 short story "The Black Cat". Instead, director Edgar G. Ulmer and writer Peter Ruric (better known as pulp writer "Paul Cain") came up with the story, which exploits what was a sudden public interest in psychiatry,[6] and Ruric wrote the screenplay.[7] The 1941 film of the same name starring Basil Rathbone, which purports to be "suggested by" the same Poe story, bears little relation to this film, other than the presence of Lugosi.
The character of Hjalmar Poelzig drew inspiration from the life of occultist Aleister Crowley,[8] while the name "Poelzig" was borrowed from architect Hans Poelzig,[9] whom Ulmer claimed to have worked with on the sets for Paul Wegener's silent film The Golem (1920).[10]
A score consisting of excerpts from classical pieces composed by Liszt,[11] Tchaikovsky,[12] Chopin,[13] and others runs through nearly 80% of the film.[14] The soundtrack was compiled by Heinz Roemheld.
Release
As part of the boom in horror sound films following the release of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931, The Black Cat was the biggest box-office hit of 1934 for Universal Pictures,[4] and it was the first of eight films (six of which were produced by Universal) to feature both Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff. The film was released in UK cinemas under the title House of Doom.
Home media
In 2005, the film was released on DVD as part of the Bela Lugosi Collection, along with Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), and Black Friday (1940).[15] Eureka Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray in July 2020 as part of their Masters of Cinema collection in the "Three Edgar Allan Poe Adaptations Starring Bela Lugosi" set, which also included Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Raven.[16]
Critical reception
Upon the film's original release, The New York Times reviewer wrote: "The Black Cat is more foolish than horrible. The story and dialogue pile the agony on too thick to give the audience a reasonable scare".[17]
The film's critical reputation has grown over time, however, and on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an 88% approval rating based on 34 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Making the most of its Karloff-Lugosi star pairing and loads of creepy atmosphere, The Black Cat is an early classic in the Universal monster movie library".[18] In 2007, the British critic Philip French called the film "the first (and best) of seven Karloff/Lugosi joint appearances. The movie unfolds like a nightmare that involves necrophilia, ailurophobia, drugs, a deadly game of chess, torture, flaying, and a black mass with a human sacrifice. This bizarre, utterly irrational masterpiece, lasting little more than an hour, has images that bury themselves in the mind".[19]
In the 2010s, Time Out polled a group of authors, directors, actors, and critics who had worked in the horror genre, and The Black Cat was voted the 89th best horror film of all time.[20] The film was also ranked #68 on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" for the "skinning" scene.[21] Cramps-guitarist and noted horror aficionado Poison Ivy has said of this scene: "Karloff gets skinned alive at the end, but they show the shadow of it and somehow that's more gruesome".[22]
In popular culture
An excerpt from the scene in which Werdegast utters the line, "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not", appears in the Monkees' 1968 feature film Head and on that film's subsequent soundtrack album. The line also appears in comedian Sinbad's 1990 comedy special Brain Damaged, as well as Deee-Lite's song "E.S.P." from their 1990 album World Clique.[23]
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Dick Tracy - Serial 7 - The Ghost Town Mystery (1937)
Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.
Plot
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.
Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor
Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate)
Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip)
Music by: Harry Grey
Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons
Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney
Distributed by: Republic Pictures
Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial)
Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial)
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring cast
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta as Junior
John Picorri as Dr Moloch
Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1)
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1)
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson
Supporting cast
John Dilson as Ellery Brewster
Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton
Theodore Lorch as Paterno
Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One)
Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber as Tony Martino
Buddy Roosevelt as Burke
George DeNormand as Flynn
Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch
- In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip.
- Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead
- There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...
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Dick Tracy - Serial 6 - Dangerous Waters (1937)
Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.
Plot
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.
Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor
Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate)
Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip)
Music by: Harry Grey
Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons
Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney
Distributed by: Republic Pictures
Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial)
Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial)
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring cast
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta as Junior
John Picorri as Dr Moloch
Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1)
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1)
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson
Supporting cast
John Dilson as Ellery Brewster
Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton
Theodore Lorch as Paterno
Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One)
Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber as Tony Martino
Buddy Roosevelt as Burke
George DeNormand as Flynn
Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch
- In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip.
- Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead
- There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...
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Algiers (1938) Full Film
Pepe Le Moko is a notorious thief, who escaped from France. Since his escape, Moko has become a resident and leader of the immense Casbah of Algiers. French officials arrive insisting on Pepe's capture are met with unfazed local detectives, led by Inspector Slimane, who are biding their time. Meanwhile, Pepe meets the beautiful Gaby, which arouses the jealousy of Ines.
Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr.[2] Written by John Howard Lawson, the film is about a notorious French jewel thief hiding in the labyrinthine native quarter of Algiers known as the Casbah. Feeling imprisoned by his self-imposed exile, he is drawn out of hiding by a beautiful French tourist who reminds him of happier times in Paris. The Walter Wanger production was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name.[3]
Algiers was a sensation because it was the first Hollywood film starring Hedy Lamarr, whose beauty became the main attraction for film audiences. The film is notable as one of the sources of inspiration to the screenwriters of the 1942 Warner Bros. film Casablanca, who wrote it with Hedy Lamarr in mind as the original female lead. Charles Boyer's depiction of Pepe le Moko inspired the Warner Bros. animated character Pepé Le Pew. In 1966, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[4]
Plot
Pepe le Moko is a notorious thief, who, after his last great heist, escaped from France to Algeria. Since his escape, le Moko became a resident and leader of the immense Casbah, or "native quarter", of Algiers. French officials who arrive insisting on Pepe's capture are met with unfazed local detectives, led by Inspector Slimane, who are biding their time. Meanwhile, Pepe begins to feel increasingly trapped in his prison-like stronghold, a feeling which intensifies after meeting the beautiful Gaby, who is visiting from France. His love for Gaby soon arouses the jealousy of Ines, Pepe's Algerian mistress.
The song in this film is called C'est la Vie which means That's Life in French.
Sigrid Gurie, Charles Boyer, and Hedy Lamarr
Cast
Charles Boyer as Pepe le Moko
Sigrid Gurie as Ines
Hedy Lamarr as Gaby
Joseph Calleia as Inspector Slimane
Alan Hale as Grandpere
Gene Lockhart as Regis
Walter Kingsford as Chief Inspector Louvain
Paul Harvey as Commissioner Janvier
Stanley Fields as Carlos
Johnny Downs as Pierrot
Charles D. Brown as Max
Robert Greig as Giraux
Leonid Kinskey as L'Arbi
Joan Woodbury as Aicha
Nina Koshetz as Tania
Claudia Dell as Marie
Ben Hall as Gil
Bert Roach as Bertier
Cast notes
Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr made her American film debut in Algiers, although she was already known for her appearance in the 1933 Czech film Ecstasy, in which she appeared nude.[3] Howard Dietz, the head of MGM's publicity department, quizzed her about this, and she admitted to having appeared nude. "Did you look good?", he asked. "Of course!" "Then it's all right", he said, "no damage has been done."[2]
Production
Walter Wanger, the producer of Algiers, purchased the rights to the French film Pepe le Moko in order to remake it, and bought all prints of the film to prevent it from competing with his film in the U.S. Wanger used most of the music from the French film in this remake as well as background sequences.[2][3]
Duration: 1 hour, 39 minutes and 7 seconds.1:39:07
Algiers
The first version of the script for Algiers was rejected by the Breen Office because the leading ladies were both portrayed as "kept women," and because of references to prostitution, the promiscuity of the lead character, and his suicide at the end of the film, which was directed to be changed to his being shot instead of killing himself.[3]
Backgrounds and exteriors for the film were shot in Algiers by a photographer named Knechtel, who was based in London. These photographs were integrated into the film by cinematographer James Wong Howe.[3]
United Artists had considered Ingrid Bergman, Dolores del Río, and Sylvia Sidney for the female lead, but, as Boyer tells it, he met Hedy Lamarr at a party and introduced her to Wanger as a possibility for his co-lead. Cromwell says about Lamarr that she could not act. "After you've been in the business for a time, you can tell easily enough right when you meet them. I could sense her inadequacy, Wanger could sense it, and I could see Boyer getting worried even before we started talking behind Hedy's back...Sometimes the word personality is interchangeable with presence although they aren't the same thing. But the principle applies, and Hedy also had no personality. How could they think she could become a second Garbo?...I'll take some credit for making her acting passable but can only share credit with Boyer fifty-fifty."[2]
Boyer did not enjoy his work on Algiers. "An actor never likes to copy another's style," he said, "and here I was copying Jean Gabin, one of the best." Director Cromwell "would run a scene from the original and insist we do it exactly that way — terrible, a perfectly terrible way to work." Cromwell, however, said that Boyer "never appreciated how different his own Pepe was from Gabin's. Boyer showed something like genius to make it different. It was a triumph of nuance. The shots are the same, the dialogue has the same meaning, but Boyer's Pepe and Gabin's Pepe are two different fellows but in the same predicament."[2]
Box office
The film earned a profit of $150,466.[1]
Awards and honors
Joseph Calleia (right) in Algiers
Academy Awards
Best Actor (nomination) – Charles Boyer
Best Supporting Actor (nomination) – Gene Lockhart
Best Art Direction (nomination) – Alexander Toluboff
Best Cinematography (nomination) – James Wong Howe
National Board of Review Awards
Joseph Calleia received the 1938 National Board of Review Award for his performance as Slimane.[5]
Others
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated[6]
Adaptations and remakes
Newspaper advertisement for The Campbell Playhouse presentation of Algiers (October 8, 1939)
Radio
In the autumn of 1938, Hollywood Playhouse presented a radio adaptation of Algiers starring Charles Boyer.[7]: 222
Algiers was adapted for the October 8, 1939, presentation of the CBS Radio series The Campbell Playhouse. The hour-long adaptation starred Orson Welles and Paulette Goddard,[8][9] with Ray Collins taking the role of Inspector Slimane.[7]: 222
The film was dramatized as an hour-long radio play on two broadcasts of Lux Radio Theatre. Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr reprised their roles in the broadcast July 7, 1941.[10] Boyer starred with Loretta Young in the broadcast December 14, 1942.[11][12]
Film
Algiers was remade in 1948 as Casbah, a musical produced by Universal Pictures, starring singer Tony Martin and Yvonne De Carlo. It was directed by John Berry. A 1949 Italian parody titled Totò Le Moko featured the comedian Totò.[3]
In popular culture
The 1938 film Algiers was most Americans' introduction to the picturesque alleys and souks of the Casbah.[citation needed] It was also the inspiration for the 1942 film Casablanca, written specifically for Hedy Lamarr in the female lead role. MGM, however, refused to release Lamarr, so the role went to Ingrid Bergman.
The invitation extended by Charles Boyer to "come to the Casbah" does not appear in the film, but still became comedians' standard imitation of Boyer, much like "Play it again, Sam" for Humphrey Bogart, "Judy, Judy, Judy" for Cary Grant and "You dirty rat" for James Cagney– all apocryphal lines. Boyer hated being reduced in that way, believing that it demeaned him as an actor.[2] In some part, the lampoon of Boyer spread, owing to its use by Looney Tunes cartoon character Pepé Le Pew, a spoof of Boyer as Pépé le Moko.[2] The amorous skunk used "Come with me to the Casbah" as a pickup line. In 1954, the Looney Tunes cartoon The Cat's Bah, which specifically spoofed Algiers, the skunk enthusiastically declared to Penelope Pussycat "You do not have to come with me to ze Casbah. We are already here!"
Parts of the dialog between Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr have been sampled by new wave band The New Occupants for their song Electric Angel.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers_(film)
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Casbah (1948)
Casbah is a 1948 American film noir crime musical film directed by John Berry starring Yvonne De Carlo, Tony Martin, Peter Lorre, and Märta Torén. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "For Every Man There's a Woman".
It is a musical remake of Algiers (1938), which was in turn an American remake of the French film Pépé le Moko (1937).
Plot
Pépé le Moko (Tony Martin) leads a gang of jewel thieves in the Casbah district of Algiers, where he has exiled himself to escape imprisonment in his native France. Inez (Yvonne De Carlo), his girl friend, is infuriated when Pépé flirts with Gaby (Märta Torén), a French visitor, but Pépé tells her to mind her own business.
Detective Slimane (Peter Lorre) is trying to lure Pépé out of the Casbah so he can be jailed. Against Slimane's advice, Police Chief Louvain (Thomas Gomez) captures Pépé in a dragnet, but his followers free him. Inez realizes that Pépé has fallen in love with Gaby and intends to follow her to Europe. Slimane knows the same and uses her as the bait to lure Pépé out of the Casbah.
Cast
Yvonne De Carlo as Inez
Tony Martin as Pépé Le Moko
Peter Lorre as Slimane
Märta Torén as Gaby
Hugo Haas as Omar
Thomas Gomez as Louvain
Douglas Dick as Carlo
Herbert Rudley as Claude
Gene Walker as Roland
Curt Conway as Maurice
Katherine Dunham as Odette
Cast notes:
Eartha Kitt plays an uncredited bit part.[3] This was her film debut.
Kathleen Freeman plays an uncredited American Woman
Production
The film was made by Marston Productions, Tony Martin's production company, who signed a deal with Universal. Tony Martin was keen to re-establish himself in the film industry after having been blacklisted in the entertainment industry since being discharged from the Navy for "unfitness" in 1942. He was charged with buying a Navy officer a car to facilitate his obtaining a chief specialists rating.[4]
It was the first production from Marston, which Martin owned with his agent, Nat Gould. The Bank of America lent $800,000 to finance the film; Universal provided some of the balance.[2]
Yvonne de Carlo signed to play the female lead in June 1947.[5] Erik Charrell was to produce, William Bowers was to write the script and Harold Arlen to do the music.[6] John Berry signed to direct.[7]
Märta Torén made her film debut here.[8]
Soundtrack
Songs by Harold Arlen (music) and Leo Robin (lyrics).
"For Every Man There's a Woman", sung by Tony Martin.
"Hooray for Love", sung by Tony Martin and Yvonne De Carlo.
"It Was Written in the Stars", sung by Tony Martin.
"What's Good About Goodbye", sung by Tony Martin.
Reception
The film only recouped $600,000 of its negative cost. By September 24, 1949 the film had earned rentals of $1,092,283.[2]
Lawsuits
Marston sued Universal in January 1949 for $250,000, alleging improper distribution. Universal counter-sued in May for $325,439, including the $320,439.25 Universal provided to the filmmakers, and $5,000 which Universal claimed Marston distributed contrary to their agreement.[9]
Universal succeeded in getting a court judgment against Marston of $350,000. A judge ordered that the film be sold to auction for $329,486.[10] Universal bought all rights to the film at public auction for $5,000. This purchase was subject to an unsatisfied lien against the property of $195,000 to the Bank of America.[2]
Martin had to go to court again to argue (successfully) that he was entitled to claim his loss on the film as a tax deduction.[4]
Awards
In 1949, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song for the song "For Every Man There's a Woman" by Harold Arlen (music) and Leo Robin (lyrics).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaMvSDb4zLo
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A Farewell To Arms (1932)
A Farewell to Arms is a 1932 American pre-Code romance drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper, and Adolphe Menjou.[3] Based on the 1929 semi-autobiographical novel A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, with a screenplay by Oliver H. P. Garrett and Benjamin Glazer, the film is about a tragic romantic love affair between an American ambulance driver and an English nurse in Italy during World War I. The film received Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Sound, and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Art Direction.[3]
In 1960, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the last claimant, United Artists, did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[4]
The original Broadway play starred Glenn Anders and Elissa Landi and was staged at the National Theatre September 22, 1930 to October 1930.[5][6]
Plot
This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (December 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
The plot is from the original 1932 film on Turner Classic Movies. The film suffered from editing and censorship even at its initial release. (See below.)
On the Italian front during World War I, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, is an American serving as an ambulance driver with the Italian Army. While carousing with his friend, Italian Captain Rinaldi, a bombing raid takes place, and Frederic and English Red Cross nurse Catherine Barkley, who left the nurses’ dormitory in her nightclothes chance to meet in a dark stairway. Frederic is tipsy and makes a poor first impression.
Later, Rinaldi persuades Frederic to go on a double date with two nurses, who happen to be Catherine and her friend Helen Ferguson, "Fergie". At a concert for officers and nurses, Frederic and Catherine stroll into the garden, where Catherine reveals that she had been engaged to a soldier who was killed in battle. After more conversation, Frederic tries to kiss her and she slaps him. Both apologize and talk some more, before she asks him to kiss her again. In the darkness, he seduces her and tells her he loves her.
In the morning, three ambulances, including Frederic's, leave for the front. Before leaving, Frederic tells Catherine that what happened between them was important, and that he will survive the battle unscathed. Catherine gives him a St. Anthony medal she wears around her neck. Rinaldi observes this, and then enters a major's office, where it is revealed that Rinaldi had orchestrated the separation to prevent Frederic from being with Catherine. The major transfers Catherine to Milan.
At the front, Frederic is badly wounded by an artillery shell. He is sent to a hospital in Milan where Catherine rushes to his bed to embrace him. Later that night, an Italian Army priest visits Frederic while Catherine is there. Seeing they are in love, he performs an unofficial wedding.
Months later, Catherine and Frederic ask Fergie for their wedding, who rejects the offer, saying they won't marry due to the war. As she leaves, she warns Frederic that if he gets Catherine pregnant, she will kill him. Back at the hospital, Frederic is told his convalescent leave is canceled. While waiting for his train, Catherine confides to Frederic that she is scared of each of them dying. He promises he will always come back, and they kiss before he leaves. Later, Catherine reveals to Fergie that she is pregnant and she is going to Switzerland to have the child.
While apart, Catherine writes letters to Frederic, never revealing her pregnancy. In Turin, Rinaldi tries to entice Frederic to have some fun, but Frederic is intent on writing to Catherine. Rinaldi, unbeknownst to Frederic, makes sure that all of Catherine's letters are "Returned to sender". Meanwhile, the hospital at Milan returns Frederic's letters to him, marked "person unknown." Fredrick deserts and goes to Milan to find Catherine.
A Farewell to Arms ad from The Film Daily, 1932
In Milan, Fredrick finds only Fergie, who refuses to tell him anything other than Catherine was pregnant and is gone. Rinaldi meets Frederic at a hotel and finally reveals that Catherine is going to have a baby and that she is in Brissago, apologizing for his part in keeping the lovers apart.
While Frederic is rushing to the Brissago, Catherine goes into labor and is taken to a hospital. Frederic arrives as Catherine is wheeled into the operating room for a Caesarean section. After the operation, a surgeon tells Frederic the baby boy was stillborn.
When Catherine regains consciousness, she and Frederic exchange endearments and plan their future, until Catherine panics fearing she is going to die. He tells her they can never really be parted. She tells him she is not afraid and dies in Frederic's arms as the sun rises. Frederic picks up her body and turns slowly toward the window, sobbing, "Peace, Peace."
Ending
This is the film's original ending when released to international audiences in 1932. Some prints for American audiences had a happy ending, where Catherine did not die, and some were ambiguous; some theaters were offered a choice.[7] The censors were concerned about more than just the heroine's death.[8][7] Versions proliferated when a much more powerful Motion Picture Production Code got hold of the picture before various re-releases to film and television, not to mention the effects of a change of ownership to Warner Bros. and lapse into the public domain.
According to TCM.com: "‘A Farewell to Arms’ originally ran 89 minutes, and was later cut to 78 minutes for a 1938 re-issue. The 89-minute version (unseen since the original theatrical run in 1932 and long thought to be lost) was released on DVD in 1999 by Image Entertainment, mastered from a nitrate print located in the David O. Selznick vaults."[9]
Cast
Helen Hayes as Catherine Barkley
Gary Cooper as Lieutenant Frederic Henry
Adolphe Menjou as Captain Rinaldi
Mary Philips as Helen Ferguson
Jack La Rue as Priest
Blanche Friderici as Head Nurse
Mary Forbes as Miss Van Campen
Gilbert Emery as British Major[3]
Agostino Borgato as Giulio (uncredited)
Tom Ricketts as Count Greffi (uncredited)
Music
The film's sound track includes selections from the Liebestod from Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, Wagner's opera Siegfried, and the storm passage from Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini.[10]
Critical reception
Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes
In his 1932 review in The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall wrote:
There is too much sentiment and not enough strength in the pictorial conception of Ernest Hemingway's novel ... the film account skips too quickly from one episode to another and the hardships and other experiences of Lieutenant Henry are passed over too abruptly, being suggested rather than told ... Gary Cooper gives an earnest and splendid portrayal [and] Helen Hayes is admirable as Catherine ... another clever characterization is contributed by Adolphe Menjou ... it is unfortunate that these three players, serving the picture so well, do not have the opportunity to figure in more really dramatic interludes.[11]
In 2006, Dan Callahan of Slant Magazine noted, "Hemingway ... was grandly contemptuous of Frank Borzage's version of A Farewell to Arms ... but time has been kind to the film. It launders out the writer's ... pessimism and replaces it with a testament to the eternal love between a couple."[12]
In a 2014 posting, Time Out London calls it "not only the best film version of a Hemingway novel, but also one of the most thrilling visions of the power of sexual love that even Borzage ever made ... no other director created images like these, using light and movement like brushstrokes, integrating naturalism and a daring expressionism in the same shot. This is romantic melodrama raised to its highest degree."[13]
Awards and honors
The film won two Academy Awards and was nominated for another two:[14]
Academy Award for Best Picture (nominee)[3]
Academy Award for Art Direction (nominee)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography (winner)
Academy Award for Best Sound Recording – Franklin Hansen (winner)
Also, the film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions – Nominated[15]
94
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The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (known as Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed in German) is a 1926 German animated fairytale film by Lotte Reiniger. It is the oldest surviving animated feature film; two earlier ones were made in Argentina by Quirino Cristiani, but they are considered lost.[2] The Adventures of Prince Achmed features a silhouette animation technique Reiniger had invented which involved manipulated cutouts made from cardboard and thin sheets of lead under a camera.[3] The technique she used for the camera is similar to Wayang shadow puppets, though hers were animated frame by frame, not manipulated in live action. The original prints featured color tinting.
Several famous avant-garde animators worked on this film with Lotte Reiniger, among them Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, and Carl Koch.[4][5]
The story is based on elements from the One Thousand and One Nights written by Hanna Diyab, including "Aladdin" and "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū".
Plot
An African sorcerer conjures up a flying horse, which he shows to the Caliph. When the sorcerer refuses to sell it for any amount of gold, the Caliph offers any treasure he has. The sorcerer chooses Dinarsade, the Caliph's daughter, to her great distress. Prince Achmed, Dinarsade's brother, objects, but the sorcerer persuades him to try out the horse. It carries the prince away, higher and higher into the sky, as he does not know how to control it. The Caliph has the sorcerer imprisoned.
Pari Banu (center) with her attendants, preparing to bathe.
When Achmed discovers how to make the horse descend, he finds himself in a strange foreign land, a magical island called Wak Wak. He is greeted by a bevy of attractive maidens. When they begin fighting for his attention, he flies away to a lake. There, he watches as Pari Banu, the beautiful ruler of the land of Wak Wak, arrives with her attendants to bathe. When they spot him, they all fly away, except for Pari Banu, for Achmed has her magical flying feather costume. She flees on foot, but he captures her. He gains her trust when he returns her feathers. They fall in love. She warns him, however, that the demons of Wak Wak will try to kill him.
The sorcerer frees himself from his chains. Transforming himself into a bat, he seeks out Achmed. The prince chases the sorcerer (who has turned into a kangaroo) and falls into a pit. While Achmed fights a giant snake, the sorcerer takes Pari Banu to China and sells her to the Emperor. The sorcerer returns and pins Achmed under a boulder on top of a mountain. However, the Witch of the Flaming Mountain notices him and rescues Achmed. The sorcerer is her arch-enemy, so she helps Achmed rescue Pari Banu from the Emperor. Then, the demons of Wak Wak find the couple and, despite Achmed's fierce resistance, carry Pari Banu off. Achmed forces a captive demon to fly him to Wak Wak. However, the gates of Wak Wak are locked.
He then slays a monster who is attacking a boy named Aladdin. Aladdin tells of how he, a poor tailor, was recruited by the sorcerer to retrieve a magic lamp from a cave. When Aladdin returned to the cave entrance, the sorcerer demanded the lamp before letting him out. Aladdin refused, so the sorcerer sealed him in. Aladdin accidentally released one of the genies of the lamp and ordered it to take him home. He then courted and married Dinarsade. One night, Dinarsade, Aladdin's magnificent palace, and the lamp disappeared. Blamed by the Caliph, Aladdin fled to avoid being executed. A storm at sea cast him ashore at Wak Wak. When he tried to pluck fruit from a "tree", it turned into a monster and grabbed him, but Achmed killed it.
Achmed realizes the sorcerer had been responsible for Aladdin's fate, and is further enraged. He also reveals to Aladdin that his palace and the lamp were stolen by the sorcerer because of his obsession for Dinarsade. Then, the witch arrives. Since only the lamp can open the gates, she agrees to attack the sorcerer to get it. They engage in a magical duel, each transforming into various creatures. After a while, they resume their human forms and fling fireballs at each other. Finally, the witch slays the sorcerer.
With the lamp, they are able to enter Wak Wak, just in time to save Pari Banu from being thrown to her death. A fierce battle erupts. A demon steals the lamp, but the witch gets it back. She summons creatures from the lamp who defeat the demons. One hydra-like creature seizes Pari Banu. When Achmed cuts off one of its heads, two more grow back immediately, but the witch stops this regeneration, allowing Achmed to kill it and rescue Pari Banu. A flying palace then settles to the ground. Inside, Achmed, Pari Banu, Aladdin, and the Caliph find Dinarsade. The two couples bid goodbye to the witch and fly home to the palace.
Production
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (August 2015)
Reiniger required several years, from 1923 to 1926, to make this film.[5] Each frame had to be painstakingly filmed, and 24 frames were needed per second.[5] The reason why an adaptation of Arabian Nights was chosen was based on the idea that the action should show events that would only be possible with animation. In addition to herself, her small team consisted of her husband Carl Koch, Walter Ruttmann, Berthold Bartosch, Alexander Kardan and Walter Turck. A Berlin banker named Louis Hagen financed the movie, and offered the team to use the attic of the garage in his vegetable garden as their studio. Oskar Fischinger made a wax-slicing machine for them which was used to visualize magic in several scenes. Another tool was an early version of the multiplane camera. Stars were made by holding a cardboard with small holes in front of a strong light, superimposed pieces of semitransparent tissue paper was used to make waves, and silver paper for moonlit water. For other movable backgrounds, which sometimes included the use of two negatives, they made different layers covered with substances like sand, paint and soap. For the latter, Bartosch would later say about the production of Prince Achmed: “During my years of work I have learned many things. Soap, it is quite extraordinary, with soap one can do everything.”[6][7]
Censorship
Reiniger was one of the first filmmakers in the 20th century to attempt a portrayal of the queer experience with a pair of openly gay lovers in this film: the Emperor of China and a male character named Ping Pong. Although this was censored in the version of the film that was distributed to theaters, Ping Pong is presented as the Emperor's favourite or darling (Des Kaisers Liebling) even in the censored version. Reiniger herself was outspoken on her motivation to destigmatize homosexual realities in the world of film. "I knew lots of homosexual men and women from the film and theater world in Berlin, and saw how they suffered from stigmatization. [...] I suspect that when the Emperor kisses Ping Pong, that must have been the first happy kiss between two men in the cinema and I wanted it to happen quite calmly in the middle of Prince A[c]hmed so children — some who would be homosexual and some who would not — could see it as a natural occurrence, and not be shocked [n]or ashamed."[8]
Restoration
While the original film featured color tinting, prints available just before the restoration had all been in black and white. Working from surviving nitrate prints, German and British archivists restored[9] the film during 1998 and 1999, including reinstating the original tinted image by using the Desmet method.
Availability
The film is screened on the Turner Classic Movies channel. It was also once available to stream through the subscription-based FilmStruck. Filmstruck's follow-up service, Criterion Channel, a service from the Criterion Collection, began streaming it in Region 1 after the service shuttered in November 2018. English-market DVDs are available, distributed by Milestone Films and available in NTSC R1 (from Image) and PAL R2 (from the BFI).[10] Both versions of the DVD are identical. They feature both an English-subtitled version (the intertitles are in German) and an English voice-over.
The English-subtitled film is available via Fandor and LiveTree.
Legacy
An homage to this film can be spotted in Disney's Aladdin (1992); a character named Prince Achmed has a minor role in the film. The art style also served as inspiration for the Steven Universe episode "The Answer".[11]
Score
The original score was composed by German composer Wolfgang Zeller in direct collaboration with the animation of the film. Reiniger created photograms for the orchestras, which were common in better theatres of the time, to follow along the action.[12]
Contemporary scorings
The Silk Road Ensemble accompanied the film with a live improvised performance on Western strings and instruments such as the oud, ney and sheng in October 2006 at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, NY.[13] The Silk Road Ensemble repeated the performance at the Avon Cinema in Providence, Rhode Island, in February 2007.[14]
London based band Little Sparta composed an original score to the film in 2007 with notable performances at Latitude Festival (2007), The Edinburgh Art Festival (2009) and Mekonville (2017). They have also had runs at theatres and venues in the UK and are continuing to perform it while releasing an EP of selected cues in June 2008.
New York City band Morricone Youth composed a new score for the film in 2012 and first performed it live at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn on 28 September 2012.[15] Country Club Records released a vinyl 6-song EP of the score in 2016.[16]
Spanish band Caspervek Trio composed a new soundtrack for the movie in 2014 premiered in Vigo, with further performances in Ourense, Liptovský Míkulás and Madrid.[17]
The Scottish jazz quartet, S!nk, composed and performed a new score for the film in 2017 as part of the Hidden Door arts festival in Edinburgh as part of a series of events celebrating the re-opening of the Leith Theatre after being closed for 25 years.[18][19]
Students from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire composed a score for the film, which premiered at the Flatpack Film Festival at Dig Brew Co. on 22 April 2018 [20]
Chris Davies composed a new score for the opening night of the 2014 Bradford animation festival. Using a mixture of recorded and live instrumentation, he has continued touring extensively, playing live with the film throughout the UK and Europe.
Ben Bentele, David Alderdice, Daniel Be, and Cait Pope composed and improvised a score for the film, which premiered at the Paradise Theater in Paonia, Colorado, USA on 22 April 2023. The performance included a wide array of world instruments and electronic elements.
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Dick Tracy - Serial 5 Brother Against Brother (1937)
Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.
Plot
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.
Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor
Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate)
Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip)
Music by: Harry Grey
Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons
Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney
Distributed by: Republic Pictures
Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial)
Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial)
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring cast
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta as Junior
John Picorri as Dr Moloch
Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1)
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1)
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson
Supporting cast
John Dilson as Ellery Brewster
Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton
Theodore Lorch as Paterno
Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One)
Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber as Tony Martino
Buddy Roosevelt as Burke
George DeNormand as Flynn
Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch
- In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip.
- Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead
- There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...
173
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Peroit - Serial 1 - The Adventure Of The Clapham Cook
The Adventure of the Clapham Cook
Episode aired Jan 8, 1989
TV-14
51m
Poirot probes the disappearance of a wealthy woman's cook, and soon uncovers an elaborate plot to hide an ever darker crime.
Poirot (also known as Agatha Christie's Poirot) is a British mystery drama television programme that aired from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. David Suchet stars as the eponymous detective, Agatha Christie's fictional Hercule Poirot.
The programme ran for 13 series and 70 episodes in total; each episode was adapted from a novel or short story by Christie that featured Poirot, and consequently in each episode Poirot is both the main detective in charge of the investigation of a crime (usually murder) and the protagonist who is at the centre of most of the episode's action. At the programme's conclusion, which finished with "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" (based on the 1975 novel Curtain, the final Poirot novel), every major literary work by Christie that featured the title character had been adapted.
Addeddate 2020-08-22 14:53:34
Color color
Identifier poirot-series
Reviews allowed frozen
Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.4
Sound sound
Source torrent:urn:sha1:939cce3ce443a81da27bb8e5c71f42741b008754
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483459/fullcredits/
https://archive.org/details/poirot-series/01.01+The+Adventure+Of+The+Clapham+Cook.mkv
174
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To Spring (1936)
To Spring is a 1936 animated musical short produced by Harman and Ising for the MGM cartoon studio's Happy Harmonies series.[2] Although the production credit goes to Harman and Ising this short was actually the first cartoon to be directed by the future cartoon giant William Hanna, along with animator Paul Fennell.[3] It is one of just three MGM cartoons that are in the public domain, and the only Happy Harmonies short in the public domain.
Plot
Duration: 9 minutes and 14 seconds.9:14
The full short, restored.
This short begins with the melting of winter snow as little human-like creatures (either elves or gnomes) below the ground mine colorful crystals. The creatures then process the crystals into liquids that cover the main rainbow colors. This work incites the arrival of spring above on the surface. However, a snowy wind appears and causes issues that hinders the process as the creatures start working harder. In the end, the creatures prevail and spring occurs.
Production
The title is a play on words used to represent the season of spring and action the gnomes must take to wake up and get to work. Lee Blair oversaw the short's vibrant Technicolor process.[4] The short also features the directorial debut of William Hanna, who would later create Tom & Jerry. Hanna co-directed the short with Paul Fennell, but Harman and Ising retained the production credit.[4] The film is in the public domain, because its copyright was not renewed after an initial 28 year term.[5] In addition to writing the music, Scott Bradley conducted the orchestra himself, as he did for all cartoons that he scored.[4] Voice work in the short included Delos Jewkes as the snowy wind, and radio actor J. Donald Wilson voicing the main elf (gnome).[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Spring
26
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Jerky Turkey (1945)
Jerky Turkey is a 1945 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon directed by Tex Avery.[1] Jerky Turkey is one of three MGM cartoons in the public domain in the United States as its copyright was not renewed.[2]
Plot
Duration: 7 minutes and 31 seconds.7:31
A video of the short.
In 16207⁄8, Pilgrims, riding a caricatured Mayflower with a number of World War II-era anachronisms (such as a navy gunnery deck, a Henry J. Kaiser nameplate and a fuel rationing card) land at Plymouth Rock and establish a colony, where they quickly separate into "Ye Democrats" and "Ye Republicans." The Pilgrims all stand in line for cigarettes (some are caricatures of Avery's animation crew), while the town crier bemoans that he has been made eligible for the draft with a card bearing his "1-A" eligibility in his hand.
A pear-shaped Pilgrim, who speaks with the milquetoast mannerisms of Bill Thompson (here impersonated because he had been drafted and was unavailable), emerges from his dilapidated teardrop trailer home and goes hunting for a turkey for a Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey emerges from the "House of Seven Gobbles" (a literal black market in disguise) and, seeing an easy mark and speaking in an impersonation of Jimmy Durante, offers himself to the pilgrim, only to use this as the start of a series of rapid-fire gags that stretch the limits of even cartoon physics, with the turkey consistently getting the best of his increasingly befuddled and frustrated opponent.
Eventually the two make up and decide to "eat at Joe's," following the advice of a clapboard-wearing bear advertising his steakhouse that appears throughout the short. When they reach Joe's steakhouse, the door closes, loud crashes and thuds are heard, and the bear is seen coming out of the restaurant without his sandwich board; on his back is a tattoo which reads "I'm Joe". Joe the bear is grinning and picking his teeth, as the swallowed-whole turkey and pilgrim sulk in Joe's stomach. The pilgrim closes the cartoon by holding up a sign of his own: "DON'T eat at Joe's."
Voice cast
Tex Avery as Crows Nest Pilgrim, Turkey Call, Turkey Gobble, Junior Pilgrim[3][4][5]
Frank Graham as Indian
Leone LeDoux as Crying Pilgrim
Wally Maher as Jimmy Durante Turkey[6][7]
Production
Some voices were provided by radio actors Wally Maher and Leone LeDoux, who had previously voiced Screwy Squirrel and who specialized in baby cries, respectively.[8] Some internet sources cite voice actor Daws Butler as the voice of jerky turkey, but he did not make his first voice appearance until 1948 in Screen Gems' Short Snorts on Sports.[9][10] Butler would go on to voice numerous characters in later Avery productions, including 1948’s Little Rural Riding Hood his first with the company.[10] Much like other Avery shorts, this cartoon features a celebrity voice impersonation. In this short it is a Jimmy Durante impression.[11]
While it's not known if he would have had a cameo, The Turkey from the short can be seen on storyboard from the Who Framed Roger Rabbit deleted scene entitled "Acme's Funeral".[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerky_Turkey
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Cleopatra (1934) - Full Film
In 48 B.C., Cleopatra, facing palace revolt in her kingdom of Egypt, welcomes the arrival of Julius Caesar as a way of solidifying her power under Rome. When Caesar, who she has led astray, is killed, she transfers her affections to Marc Antony and dazzles him on a barge full of Cecil B. DeMillean splendor. But the trick may not work a third time.
Cleopatra is a 1934 American epic film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and distributed by Paramount Pictures. A retelling of the story of Cleopatra VII of Egypt, the screenplay was written by Waldemar Young and Vincent Lawrence and was based on Bartlett Cormack's adaptation of historical material.[2] Claudette Colbert stars as Cleopatra, Warren William as Julius Caesar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Mark Antony.
Cleopatra received five Academy Award nominations. It was the first DeMille film to receive a nomination for Best Picture.[3] Victor Milner won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.[4]
Plot
"It was quite difficult to be rolled into a rug and breathe and come out looking pleased with yourself," Colbert remembered. "We only had to do that scene once."[5]
In 48 BC, Cleopatra vies with her brother Ptolemy for control of Egypt. Pothinos (Leonard Mudie) kidnaps her and Apollodorus (Irving Pichel) and strands them in the desert. When Pothinos informs Julius Caesar that the queen has fled the country, Caesar is ready to sign an agreement with Ptolemy when Apollodorus appears, bearing a gift carpet for the Roman. When Apollodorus unrolls it, Cleopatra emerges, much to Pothinos' surprise. He tries to deny who she is.
Caesar sees through the deception, and Cleopatra soon beguiles Caesar with the prospect of the riches of Egypt and India. Later, when they are seemingly alone, she spots a sandal peeking out from underneath a curtain and thrusts a spear into the hidden Pothinos, foiling his assassination attempt. Caesar makes Cleopatra the sole ruler of Egypt, and begins an affair with her.
Caesar eventually returns to Rome with Cleopatra to the cheers of the masses but Roman unease is directed at Cleopatra. Cassius (Ian Maclaren), Casca (Edwin Maxwell), Brutus (Arthur Hohl) and other powerful Romans become disgruntled, rightly suspecting that he intends to abolish the Roman Republic and make himself emperor, with Cleopatra as his empress (after divorcing Calpurnia, played by Gertrude Michael). Ignoring the forebodings of Calpurnia, Cleopatra, and a soothsayer (Harry Beresford) who warns him about the Ides of March, Caesar goes to announce his intentions to the Senate. Before he can do so, he is assassinated.
Cleopatra is heartbroken at the news. At first, she wants to go to him, but Apollodorus tells her that Caesar did not love her, only her power and wealth, and that Egypt needs her. They return home.
Bitter rivals Marc Antony and Octavian (Ian Keith) are named co-rulers of Rome. Antony, disdainful of women, invites Cleopatra to meet with him in Tarsus, intending to bring her back to Rome as a captive. Enobarbus (C. Aubrey Smith), his close friend, warns Antony against meeting Cleopatra, but he goes anyway. She entices him to her barge and throws a party with many exotic animals and beautiful dancers, and soon seduces him. Together, they sail to Egypt.
King Herod (Joseph Schildkraut), who has secretly allied himself with Octavian, visits the lovers. He informs Cleopatra privately that Rome and Octavian can be appeased if Antony were to be poisoned. Herod also tells Antony the same thing, with the roles reversed. Antony laughs off his suggestion, but a reluctant Cleopatra, reminded of her duty to Egypt by Apollodorus, tests a poison on a condemned murderer (Edgar Dearing) to see how it works. Before Antony can drink the fatal wine, however, they receive news that Octavian has declared war.
Antony orders his generals and legions to gather, but Enobarbus informs him that they have all deserted out of loyalty to Rome. Enobarbus tells his comrade that he can wrest control of Rome away from Octavian by having Cleopatra killed, but Antony refuses to consider it. Enobarbus bids Antony goodbye, as he will not fight for an Egyptian queen against Rome. A short montage sequence shows the fighting between the forces of Antony and Octavian, ending in the naval Battle of Actium.
Antony fights on with the Egyptian army, and is defeated. Octavian and his soldiers surround and besiege Antony and Cleopatra. Antony is mocked when he offers to fight them one by one. Without his knowledge, Cleopatra opens the gate and offers to cede Egypt in return for Antony's life in exile, but Octavian turns her down. Meanwhile, Antony believes that she has deserted him for his rival and stabs himself. When Cleopatra returns, she is heartbroken to find him dying. They reconcile before he perishes. Then, with the gates breached, Cleopatra kills herself with a venomous snake and is found sitting on her throne, dead.
Cast
Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra
Warren William as Julius Caesar
Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Antony
The closing credits list 32 actors and the names of their characters:
Claudette Colbert as Cleopatra
Warren William as Julius Caesar
Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Antony
Joseph Schildkraut as King Herod
Ian Keith as Octavian
Gertrude Michael as Calpurnia
C. Aubrey Smith as Enobarbus
Irving Pichel as Apollodorus
Arthur Hohl as Brutus
Edwin Maxwell as Casca
Ian Maclaren as Cassius
Eleanor Phelps as Charmion, Cleopatra's servant
Leonard Mudie as Pothinos
Grace Durkin as Iras, Cleopatra's servant
Ferdinand Gottschalk as Glabrio
Claudia Dell as Octavia
Harry Beresford as Soothsayer
Jayne Regan as Lady Vesta (as Jane Regan)
William Farnum as Lepidus
Lionel Belmore as Fidius
Florence Roberts as Lady Flora
Richard Alexander as General Philodemas
Celia Ryland as Lady Leda
William V. Mong as Court physician
Robert Warwick as General Achillas
George Walsh as Courier
Jack Rutherford as Flavius
Kenneth Gibson as Scribe
Wedgewood Nowell as Scribe
Bruce Warren as Scribe
Robert Seiter as Aelius (as Robert Manning)
Edgar Dearing as the convict who tests the poison
Production
Publicity photo of Colbert as Cleopatra.
Duration: 4 minutes and 16 seconds.4:16
The original trailer for the film.
The shoot was a difficult one due to Colbert contracting appendicitis on the set of her previous film, Four Frightened People, leaving her only able to stand for a few minutes at a time. Heavy costumes complicated matters further.[6] Due to Colbert's fear of snakes, DeMille put off her death scene for as long as possible. At the time of shooting, he walked onto the set with a boa constrictor wrapped around his neck and handed Colbert a tiny garden snake.[6]
On July 1, 1934 (89 years ago),[7] the Motion Picture Production Code began to be rigidly enforced and expanded by Joseph Breen. Talkie films made before that date are generally referred to as "pre-Code" films. However, DeMille was able to get away with using more risqué imagery than he would be able to do in his later productions. He opens the film with an apparently naked, but strategically lit slave girl holding up an incense burner in each hand as the title appears on screen.[citation needed]
The film is also memorable for the sumptuous art deco look of its sets (by Hans Dreier) and costumes (by Travis Banton), the atmospheric music composed by Rudolph George Kopp, and for DeMille's legendary set piece of Cleopatra's seduction of Antony, which takes place on Cleopatra's barge.[citation needed] Colbert later said: "DeMille's films were special: somehow when he put everything together, there was a special kind of glamour and sincerity."[8]
Release
On August 16, 1934, Cleopatra received its world premiere at the Paramount Theatre in New York City.[9]
The premiere audience, which gave the film a standing ovation, included social leaders, diplomats, and famous stars of stage and film.[9]
In its first week at the Paramount, the film set an annual record with 110,383 admissions.[10]
Cleopatra went on to become the highest-grossing film released in North America in 1934.[citation needed]
Reception
Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it "one of the director's most ambitious spectacles" and singled out Wilcoxon's performance as "excellent, especially in the more dramatic sequences."[11] Film Daily called it a "sumptuous historical drama" with a "strong cast" and "good entertainment values".[12] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that "Even as extravaganza it's moderate", and called the dialogue "the worst I have ever heard in the talkies."[13] Variety agreed that "Often the lines drew titters that are not being angled for", but maintained, "Photographically the picture is superb."[14]
In his Movie Guide, film critic Leonard Maltin gave Cleopatra 3.5 out of 4 stars and wrote, "Opulent DeMille version of Cleopatra doesn't date badly, stands out as one of his most intelligent films, thanks in large part to fine performances by all."[15]
Accolades
At the 7th Academy Awards in 1935, Cleopatra won for Best Cinematography (Victor Milner).[4] It was nominated for four more awards: Outstanding Production (Paramount), Best Assistant Director (Cullen Tate), Best Film Editing (Anne Bauchens), and Best Sound Recording (Franklin Hansen).[4] In the January 1935 issue of The New Movie Magazine, Claudette Colbert's performance in Cleopatra was named the "Movie Highlight of the Year" for August 1934,[16] the month in which the film premiered.
In 2002, the American Film Institute nominated Cleopatra for the AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions list.[17]
Home media
Cleopatra, along with The Sign of the Cross, Four Frightened People, The Crusades and Union Pacific, was released on DVD in 2006 by Universal Studios as part of the five-disc box set The Cecil B. DeMille Collection.[18]
It has been released for home viewing several times in the United States of America, including a 75th anniversary DVD edition in 2009 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.[19]
In the United Kingdom, Cleopatra was released in a Dual Format DVD and Blu-ray edition on September 24, 2012, by Eureka as part of their Masters of Cinema series.[20]
On April 10, 2018, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray.[21]
142
views
Checkmate: The Human Touch (1961)
Usage Public DomainCreative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics classic tv, Peter Lorre, checkmate, private detective
Peter Lorre plays a recently released criminal mastermind who has hatched a plot to get even with the criminologist who sent him to prison. Aired: January 14, 1961
Addeddate 2010-05-16 13:52:58
Color color
Ia_orig__runtime 49 minutes 24 seconds
Identifier CheckmateTheHumanTouch1961
Run time 49:24
Sound sound
https://archive.org/details/CheckmateTheHumanTouch1961
25
views
The Thin Man (1934) - Full Film
The Thin Man is a 1934 American pre-Code comedy-mystery film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. The film stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a leisure-class couple who enjoy copious drinking and flirtatious banter. Nick is a retired private detective who left his very successful career when he married Nora, a wealthy heiress accustomed to high society. Their wire-haired fox terrier Asta was played by canine actor Skippy. In 1997, the film was added to the United States National Film Registry having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
The film's screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, a married couple. In 1934, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The eponymous "Thin Man" is not Nick Charles, but the man Charles is initially hired to find – Clyde Wynant (part way through the film, Charles describes Wynant as a "thin man with white hair"). The "Thin Man" moniker was thought by many viewers to refer to Nick Charles and, after a time, it was used in the titles of sequels as if referring to Charles. It was followed by five sequels.
Plot
William Powell, Myrna Loy and Skippy (Asta) in The Thin Man
Dorothy Wynant discusses her upcoming wedding with her father Clyde. She is surprised that her fiancé knows all about her family yet still wants to marry her. Later, her father discovers that bonds worth $50,000, intended as a wedding present for his daughter, are missing. The only other person who knows the combination of the safe in which they were kept is his secretary, Julia. When he confronts Julia about the missing bonds, she confesses that she cashed them in and has only $25,000 left. He threatens to call the police unless she comes up with the other $25,000.
Nick Charles is a retired detective and he once did a job for Clyde. Nick and his wealthy wife, Nora, live in San Francisco but are visiting New York City for Christmas, staying in a glamorous apartment-like suite at the Hotel Normandie. While in New York, Nick is pressed back into service by Dorothy, as her father, the "Thin Man" of the movie title, was supposed to have left on a secret business trip with a promise to return home before his daughter's wedding, but he has mysteriously disappeared. She convinces Nick to take the case, with the assistance of his socialite wife, who is eager to see him in action. What appears to be a missing person situation rapidly turns into a murder case, when Julia Wolf, Clyde's former secretary and girlfriend, is found dead, and evidence points to Clyde as the prime suspect. Dorothy refuses to believe that her father is guilty. Nick and Police Lieutenant Guild visit Nunheim, a frequent source for the lieutenant. After being pressed for information, Nunheim excuses himself momentarily, only to slip away down the fire escape. He arranges a meeting with the yet-unidentified murderer (someone whose face is not yet shown) to collect $5,000 from him. When Nunheim arrives, however, he is immediately shot four times and killed.
On a hunch, Nick soon visits Wynant's closed shop in the dead of night and unearths a skeletonized, but fully dressed, body, buried under the floor. In the dark shop, Wynant's bookkeeper, Tanner, suddenly appears. After that, the police—whom Nick had called once he found the body—arrive and concludes that Wynant committed the murders of Julia and now this newly discovered body. They assume that the remains belong to the "Fat Man"—a long-ago enemy of Wynant's—because of its oversized clothing with a belt buckle bearing an "R" (for "Rosebreen", that notorious figure's surname). But Nick has already all but solved the case—and soon invites the full cast of suspects to an elegant dinner party.
There, as planned, the murderer is exposed. Nick—who had accompanied the medical examiner when he X-rayed the buried body—theorizes that the clothes were planted to hide the body's true identity, as the X-ray revealed telltale shrapnel, presumably from an old war wound, in one leg, the exact same injury that had plagued the "Thin Man": the missing Wynant. Nick deduces that the real culprit murdered Clyde once he discovered that the killer had been embezzling from him, and then the culprit murdered his own accomplice, Julia Wolf, because she knew about Clyde's murder, and after that, he murdered Nunheim since he had witnessed Julia's murder and was blackmailing him.
Nick unfurls more of his theory to the dinner guests. Herbert MacCauley, Clyde's attorney, panics and tries to shoot Nick. Nick punches him out and declares MacCauley to be the murderer.
Finally, Nick and Nora, along with Dorothy and her new husband, Tommy, celebrate as they ride a luxury train back to California. Nora, in the lower bunk, wants to sleep with Asta, but Nick tosses Asta to the upper bunk and joins Nora himself. Asta looks down on the couple and covers his eyes with his paw.
Cast
Lobby card
William Powell as Nick Charles
Myrna Loy as Nora Charles
Maureen O'Sullivan as Dorothy Wynant
Nat Pendleton as Lt. John Guild
Minna Gombell as Mimi Wynant Jorgenson
Porter Hall as Herbert MacCaulay
Henry Wadsworth as Tommy
William Henry as Gilbert Wynant
Harold Huber as Arthur Nunheim
Cesar Romero as Chris Jorgenson
Natalie Moorhead as Julia Wolf
Edward Brophy as Joe Morelli[3]
Edward Ellis as Clyde Wynant, the "thin man"
Skippy as Asta, their dog
Cyril Thornton as Tanner
Cast notes:
Nat Pendleton reprised the role of Lt. Guild in 1939's Another Thin Man.[4]
Production
Screenplay
The film was based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, released in January 1934. Hammett's novel drew on his experiences as a union-busting Pinkerton detective in Butte, Montana. Hammett based Nick and Nora's banter upon his rocky on-again, off-again relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman.[5]
MGM paid Hammett $21,000 for the screen rights to the novel. The screenplay was written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, who had been married for three years. Director W.S. Van Dyke encouraged them to use Hammett's writing as a basis only, and to concentrate on providing witty exchanges for Nick and Nora.
Casting
Van Dyke convinced MGM executives to let Powell and Loy portray the lead characters despite concerns that Powell was too old and strait-laced to play Nick Charles and that Loy had become typecast in exotic femme fatale roles.[6][7]
Skippy played Asta, the dog of Nick and Nora. Skippy was subsequently cast in two screwball comedy classics, The Awful Truth (1937) and Bringing Up Baby (1938).
Filming
Myrna Loy, William Powell and Skippy
[Nick and Nora were the] first on-screen Hollywood couple for whom matrimony did not signal the end of sex, romance and adventure.
–Film historian Andrew Sarris (1998)[8]
The film was shot with a budget of $226,408 by cinematographer James Wong Howe. For Powell's first scene in the film, Van Dyke told him to take the cocktail shaker, go to the bar and just walk through the scene while the crew checked lights and sound. Powell did it, throwing in some lines and business of his own. Suddenly he heard Van Dyke say, "That's it! Print it!" The director had decided to shoot the scene without Powell knowing it so that he would be as relaxed and natural as possible.
Van Dyke often did not bother with cover shots if he felt the scene was right on the first take, reasoning that actors "lose their fire" if they have to do something over and over. It was a lot of pressure on the actors, who often had to learn new lines and business immediately before shooting, without the luxury of retakes, but Loy credited much of the appeal of the film to Van Dyke's pacing and spontaneity. He paid the most attention to Powell and Loy's easy banter between takes and their obvious enjoyment of each other's company and worked it into the movie. The director often encouraged and incorporated improvisation and off-the-cuff details into the picture. In order to keep her entrance fresh and spontaneous, Van Dyke did not tell Loy about it until right before they shot it.
Powell loved working so much with Loy because of her naturalness, her professionalism, and her lack of any kind of "diva" temperament. Of her, Powell said:
When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles, and microphones. We weren't acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony. Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and takes of acting that brings out the best.
According to Loy, the actors were not allowed to interact between takes with the dog Skippy; trainers felt it would break his concentration. Skippy once bit Loy during filming.[9]: 91
Although she had great compliments for Powell's charm and wit, Maureen O'Sullivan (who played the daughter of Wynant) later said she did not enjoy making the picture because her part was so small and the production was so rushed.
The scene of Nick shooting the ornaments off the tree was added after Powell playfully picked up an air gun and started shooting ornaments the art department was putting up.
Loy wrote that the biggest problem during shooting was the climactic dinner party scene in which Nick reveals the killer. Powell complained that he had too many lines to learn and could barely decipher the complicated plot he was unraveling. It was the one scene when several retakes were necessary, which brought up an entirely new problem. The script called for oysters to be served to the dinner guests and, in take after take, the same plate of oysters was brought out under the hot lights. Loy recalled that "they began to putrefy. By the time we finished that scene, nobody ever wanted to see another oyster".[9]: 89–90
Reception
The film was released on May 25, 1934, to overwhelmingly positive reviews, with special praise for the chemistry between Loy and Powell. Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it "an excellent combination of comedy and excitement", and the film appeared on the Times year-end list of the ten best of the year.[6] Variety reported that "The Thin Man was an entertaining novel, and now it's an entertaining picture. For its leads the studio couldn't have done better than to pick Powell and Miss Loy, both of whom shade their semi-comic roles beautifully".[10] Film Daily raved: "The screen seldom presents a more thoroughly interesting piece of entertainment than this adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's popular novel. The rapid fire dialogue is about the best heard since talkies, and it is delivered by Powell and Miss Loy to perfection".[11] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that Loy and Powell played their parts "beautifully", adding: "All the people of the book are there, and I think the final scenes of the solution of the mystery are handled on a higher note than they were in print".[12] Louella Parsons called it "the greatest entertainment, the most fun and the best mystery-drama of the year".[6] The Chicago Tribune said that it was "exciting", "amusing" and "fat with ultra, ultra-sophisticated situations and dialog". It also called Powell and Loy "delightful".[13] Harrison Carroll of The Los Angeles Herald-Express wrote that it was "one of the cleverest adaptations of a popular novel that Hollywood has ever turned out".[6]
The film was such a box-office success that it spawned five sequels:
After the Thin Man (1936)
Another Thin Man (1939)
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Song of the Thin Man (1947)
The Thin Man was voted one of the ten best pictures of 1934 by Film Daily's annual poll of critics.[14]
In 2002, critic Roger Ebert added the film to his list of Great Movies.[15] Ebert praised William Powell's performance in particular, stating that Powell "is to dialogue as Fred Astaire is to dance. His delivery is so droll and insinuating, so knowing and innocent at the same time, that it hardly matters what he's saying".[16]
The Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa cited The Thin Man as one of his favorite films.[17][18]
In 2000 American Film Institute designated the film as one of the great comedies in the previous hundred years of cinema.
The film is 32nd on the American Film Institute's 2000 list AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs[19] and was nominated for the following lists:
1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies[20]
2002: AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions[21]
2003: AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains:
Nick & Nora Charles – Heroes[22]
2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
Nora Charles: "I read where you were shot five times in the tabloids".
Nick Charles: "It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids".[23]
2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)[24]
2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
Mystery Film[25]
Box office
The Thin Man earned total theater rentals of $1,423,000, with $818,000 from the US and Canada and $605,000 in other foreign rentals, resulting in a profit of $729,000.[1][2]
Trailer
Duration: 3 minutes and 16 seconds.3:16Subtitles available.CC
Trailer for The Thin Man
The trailer contained specially filmed footage in which Nick Charles (William Powell) is seen on the cover of the Dashiell Hammett novel The Thin Man. Nick Charles then steps out of the cover to talk to fellow detective Philo Vance (also played by Powell) about his latest case. Charles mentions he hasn't seen Vance since The Kennel Murder Case, a film in which Powell played Vance, released in October 1933, just seven months prior to the release of The Thin Man. Charles goes on to explain to Vance that his latest case revolves around a "tall, thin man" (referring to Clyde Wynant's character), just before clips of the film are shown.
Adaptations
The Thin Man was dramatized as a radio play on an hour-long broadcast of Lux Radio Theatre on June 8, 1936. William Powell, Myrna Loy, Minna Gombell, Porter Hall, William Henry, and Thomas Jackson reprised their film roles, and W. S. Van Dyke was host.[26][27]
Home media
Long available on VHS and DVD, The Thin Man was released on Blu-ray Disc by the Warner Archive Collection on July 30, 2019. The 1080p high-definition master was made from a 4K restoration based on new transfers of the picture's best surviving film elements, with digital correction of a multitude of defects seen in earlier home-media releases. Blu-ray.com reported that the film "looks exceptional and, aside from a true 4K option, will likely never get a better home video release". Extras include the theatrical trailer, the 1936 Lux Radio Theatre broadcast, and the 1958 second-season premiere of the NBC television series.[28][29]
In popular culture
The TV series The Thin Man ran from 1957 through 1959, starring Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk.[30]
In the 1976 comedy spoof movie Murder by Death, the characters of Nick and Nora Charles became Dick and Dora Charleston, played by David Niven and Maggie Smith.[31][32]
In the 2005 animated film Hoodwinked!, the character Nicky Flippers, a frog detective voiced by David Ogden Stiers, was based on Nick Charles.
Creators Rachel Cohn and David Levithan named their lead characters in the 2008 film Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist as an homage to the characters in The Thin Man.[33]
The 2022 science fiction novel The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal is a sci-fi take on the Nick and Nora characters, but set in space.[34]
193
views
Klackers Commercial - 1970
Publication date 1970
Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0Creative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics Demolition Kitchen Video, Randall Parker, Randy Parker, Bob Walterschied Productions, Local Commercials, Wichita, Kansas, Vintage film, Vintage commercials, 16mm film, Television, Television production
Language English
Series of vintage commercials for a toy that was recalled shortly after it's release, Klackers. The last version of the commercial notes safety improvements.
Demolition Kitchen Video collection of 16mm films from Randall Parker, Wichita, KS.
Addeddate 2016-10-30 20:43:59
Color color
Identifier KlackersCommercial
Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3
Sound sound
Year 1970
https://archive.org/details/KlackersCommercial
67
views
American TV Commercial Collection 1960s
Publication date 1967
Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0Creative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics Demolition Kitchen Video, Randall Parker, Randy Parker, Bob Walterschied Productions, Local Commercials, Wichita, Kansas, Vintage film, Vintage commercials, 16mm film, Television, Television production
Language English
KAKE-TV local television commercials from the 1960s, Walterschied Productions.
Including:
- Ott’s French Dressing
- Pizza Hut (1967)
- Oldham Sausage
- Taco Tico
- Derby Gas Station
- Sandy’s Drive-in
- Sandy’s Drive-in, Big Scott
- Bulger Cadillac
- Tect-Her spray
- Penn Autoglass
- Penn Autoglass #2
- Service Autoglass
- Pizza Hut, version #2
Collected 16mm films of Randall Parker, Archivist: Ben Urish, 16mm to digital conversion by Demolition Kitchen Video
Addeddate 2016-11-01 23:04:06
Color color
Identifier WichitaCommercials01
Scanner Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.6.3
Sound sound
Year 1967
https://archive.org/details/WichitaCommercials01
46
views
Cairo (1942) - Full Film
Cairo is a 1942 musical comedy film made by MGM and Loew's, and directed by W. S. Van Dyke. The screenplay was written by John McClain, based on an idea by Ladislas Fodor about a news reporter shipwrecked in a torpedo attack, who teams up with a Hollywood singer and her maid to foil Nazi spies. The music score is by Herbert Stothart. This film was Jeanette MacDonald's last film on her MGM contract.[3]
The film was poorly received upon its initial release.[4]
Plot
[icon]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2014)
American Homer Smith is the star reporter of a small newspaper, which is named the best small town newspaper in the country. As a reward for his contributions, he is sent to North Africa to report on the war. In the Mediterranean, however, his ship is sunk; he and one other survivor, Philo Cobson, make it to shore. Cobson reveals that he is a member of British Intelligence and asks Smith to give a coded message to a Mrs. Morrison in Cairo.
Mrs. Morrison tells him that motion picture star Marcia Warren is a Nazi spy. Smith, a big fan of Warren, has trouble believing it, but finds Warren's behavior suspect. He gets a job as her butler as Juniper Jones. Meanwhile, the innocent Warren begins to think that Smith is an enemy agent. Despite their mutual suspicions, they start to fall in love. Eventually, the real spies are unmasked: Cobson and Mrs. Morrison.
Cast
Jeanette MacDonald as Marcia Warren
Robert Young as Homer Smith, aka Juniper Jones
Ethel Waters as Cleona Jones, Marcia's Maid
Reginald Owen as Philo Cobson
Grant Mitchell as Mr. O.H.P. Boggs
Lionel Atwill as Teutonic gentleman
Eduardo Ciannelli as Ahmed Ben Hassan
Mitchell Lewis as Ludwig
Dooley Wilson as Hector
Larry Nunn as Bernie
Dennis Hoey as Col. Woodhue
Mona Barrie as Mrs. Morrison
Rhys Williams as Strange man
Cecil Cunningham as Mme. Laruga
Harry Worth as Viceroy Hotel bartender
Frank Richards as Alfred
Faten Hamama as Amina
Reception
According to MGM records. the film earned $616,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $581,000 elsewhere, meaning the studio recorded a profit of $273,000.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_(1942_film)
89
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Night of the Living Dead (1968) - Full Film
Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film that introduced the flesh-eating ghouls that would become synonymous with the term "zombie". The story follows seven people trapped in a farmhouse in rural Pennsylvania, under assault by reanimated corpses. The movie was directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, written by Romero and John Russo, and produced by Russell Streiner and Karl Hardman. It stars Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea.
Having gained experience creating television commercials, industrial films, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood segments at their production company The Latent Image, Romero, Russo, and Streiner decided to make a feature film. They elected to make a horror film to capitalize on interest in the genre. Their script drew from Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend. Principal photography took place between July 1967 and January 1968, mainly on location in Evans City, Pennsylvania. Romero used guerrilla filmmaking techniques he had honed in his commercial and industrial work to complete the film on a budget of approximately US$100,000. Without the budget for a proper set, they rented a condemned farmhouse to destroy during the course of filming.
Night of the Living Dead premiered in Pittsburgh on October 1, 1968. It grossed US$12 million domestically and US$18 million internationally, earning more than 250 times its budget and making it one of the most profitable film productions ever made at the time. Released shortly before the adoption of the Motion Picture Association of America rating system, the film's explicit violence and gore were considered groundbreaking, leading to controversy and negative reviews. It eventually garnered a cult following and critical acclaim and has appeared on lists of the greatest and most influential films by such outlets as Empire, The New York Times, and Total Film. Frequently identified as a touchstone in the development of the horror genre, retrospective scholarly analysis has focused on its reflection of the social and cultural changes in the United States during the 1960s, with particular attention towards the casting of Jones, an African-American, in the leading role.[5] In 1999, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[6][7][8]
Night of the Living Dead created a successful franchise that includes five sequels released between 1978 and 2009, all directed by Romero. Due to an error when titling the original film, it entered the public domain upon release,[9] resulting in numerous adaptations, remakes, and a lasting legacy in the horror genre. An official remake, written by Romero and directed by Tom Savini, was released in 1990.
Plot
Duration: 1 hour, 35 minutes and 53 seconds.1:35:53Subtitles available.CC
Night of the Living Dead (full film)
Siblings Barbra and Johnny drive to a cemetery in rural Pennsylvania to visit their father's grave, where a pale man in a tattered suit kills Johnny and attacks Barbra. She flees to a nearby farmhouse but finds the resident's corpse lying half-eaten on the stairs. A growing horde of ghouls soon surround the house as a stranger, Ben, arrives and initially mistakes Barbra for the homeowner. After driving back several ghouls, he boards the windows and doors. While searching the home for supplies, he locates a lever-action rifle.
A nearly catatonic Barbra is surprised to find people already taking shelter in the home's cellar. Harry, his wife Helen, and their young daughter Karen fled there after a group of the same monsters overturned their car and bit Karen on the arm, leaving her seriously ill. A couple, Tom and Judy, took shelter after hearing an emergency broadcast about a series of brutal killings. Tom and Ben secure the farmhouse while Harry protests that it is unsafe aboveground before returning to the cellar. Ghouls continue to besiege the farmhouse in increasing numbers.
The refugees listen to radio and television reports of an army of cannibalistic corpses committing mass murder across the East Coast of the United States and of the posses of armed men patrolling the countryside to exterminate the living dead. Reports confirm that the ghouls can die again from heavy blows to the head, bullets to the brain, or being burned. Various rescue centers offer refuge and safety, and scientists theorize that radiation from an exploding space probe returning from Venus caused the reanimations.
Judy peers from an open truck window.
Judith Ridley as Judy, near the gas pump
Ben devises a plan to obtain medical supplies for Karen and transport the group to a rescue center by refueling his truck at a pump on the farm. Ben, Tom, and Judy drive there together, holding the ghouls off with torches and Molotov cocktails. However, the gas from the pump spills and causes the truck to catch fire and explode, killing Tom and Judy. Ben returns and breaks down the door when Harry does not let him in.
The remaining survivors attempt to figure a way out. They pause their discussion to watch the 3 a.m. news update until the power cuts out. The ghouls soon break through the doors and windows of the unlit home. In the chaos, Harry grabs Ben's gun but is disarmed and shot by Ben. Harry staggers down to the cellar and dies next to his daughter.
Karen dies from her injuries, becomes a ghoul, and eats her father's remains. She stabs her mother to death with a masonry trowel. Barbra tries to help Ben keep the ghouls out, but a reanimated Johnny drags her away. As the horde breaks in, Ben takes refuge in the cellar, where he shoots Harry's and Helen's ghouls.
In the morning, an armed posse arrives to dispatch the remaining ghouls. Awoken by their gunfire and sirens, Ben emerges from the cellar, but they shoot him, mistaking Ben for a ghoul. His body is thrown onto a bonfire and burned with the rest of the ghouls.
Cast
Ben holds a rifle in the farmhouse living room.
Ben, played by Duane Jones
The low-budget film included no well-known actors,[10] but propelled the careers of some cast members.[11] Two independent film companies from Pittsburgh—Hardman Associates and director George A. Romero's The Latent Image—combined to form a production company chartered only to create Night of the Living Dead.[12] The cast consisted of members of the production company, actors previously cast for their commercials, acquaintances of Romero, and Pittsburgh stage actors.[13]
Duane Jones as Ben. The casting was potentially controversial in 1968 when it was rare for a black man to be cast as the hero of an American film primarily composed of white actors, but Romero said that Jones performed the best in his audition.[14] Jones went on to appear in other films, including Ganja & Hess (1973) and Beat Street (1984),[15] but worried that people only recognized him as Ben.[16]
Judith O'Dea as Barbra. A 23-year-old commercial and stage actress, O'Dea previously worked for Hardman and Eastman in Pittsburgh. O'Dea was in Hollywood seeking entry to the movie business when contacted about the role.[17] O'Dea expressed surprise at the film's cultural impact and the renown it brought her.[18]
Karl Hardman as Harry Cooper. President of Hardman Associates, Karl Hardman, played the hostile father. Cooper's wife was played by Hardman's real-life business and romantic partner Marilyn Eastman.[19][20]
Marilyn Eastman as Helen Cooper.[21] Vice president of Hardman Associates, Marilyn Eastman played the doomed mother Helen Cooper and the unnamed, bug-eating zombie. She later appeared in Santa Claws (1996), directed by John Russo.[20][22]
Kyra Schon as Karen Cooper. Hardman's daughter in real life,[23] 9-year-old Schon also portrayed the mangled corpse on the house's upstairs floor that Ben drags away.[24]
Keith Wayne as Tom. "Keith Wayne" was Ronald Keith Hartman's stage name.[24] After this lone acting role, Wayne went on to work as a singer, dancer, musician, and night-club owner.[25][24] Wayne became a successful chiropractor in North Carolina.[25] Wayne explained the change in careers during a 1992 interview, "I am not that person anymore. [...] I got to a point in my life where I wanted to have some control. I didn't want to wake up at 40 or 50 and not be in control."[26] In 1995, he took his own life at age 50.[27][28]
Judith Ridley as Judy. The 19-year-old receptionist from Hardman Associates auditioned for Barbra without any acting experience and was given the less-demanding role of Judy.[29] Ridley starred in Romero's unsuccessful second feature There's Always Vanilla (1971).[30]
Bill Hinzman, who played the first ghoul encountered by Barbra and Johnny in the cemetery, went on to work on a number of horror films including The Majorettes (1986) and Flesheater (1988).[31][32]
George Kosana as Sheriff McClelland. Kosana also served as the film's production manager.[33]
Bill "Chilly Billy" Cardille as himself.[34] Cardille was well known in Pittsburgh as a TV presenter who hosted a horror film anthology series, Chiller Theatre.[35]
Production
Development and pre-production
External videos
video icon The Calgon Story
The creation of a high-budget television commercial for Calgon brand detergent spurred the film's producers to create a horror movie.[36]
George Romero embarked upon his career in the film industry while attending Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.[37] He directed and produced television commercials and industrial films for The Latent Image, a company he co-founded with his friend Russell Streiner.[38] The Latent Image started small, but after producing a high-budget Calgon commercial spoofing Fantastic Voyage (1966), Romero felt that The Latent Image had the experience and equipment to produce a feature film.[36] They wanted to capitalize on the film industry's "thirst for the bizarre", according to Romero.[39] He, Streiner, and John A. Russo contacted Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman, president, and vice president respectively, of a Pittsburgh-based industrial film firm called Hardman Associates, Inc. The Latent Image pitched their idea for a then-untitled horror film.[40]
These discussions led to the creation of Image Ten, a production company chartered to produce a single feature film. The initial budget was $6,000;[12] each member of the production company invested $600 for a share of the profits.[41][b] Ten more investors contributed another $6,000, but this was still insufficient.[42] Production stopped multiple times during filming while Romero used early footage to persuade additional investors.[43] Image Ten eventually raised approximately $114,000 for the budget ($959,000 today).[44][42]
Writing
A group of actors in zombie makeup shamble across the unlit lawn of the farmhouse.
Ghouls swarm around the house, searching for living human flesh.
The script was co-written by Russo and Romero. They abandoned an early horror comedy concept about adolescent aliens,[45] after realizing they would not have the budget to create a convincing spaceship.[46] Russo proposed a more constrained narrative where a young man runs away from home and discovers aliens harvesting human corpses for food in a cemetery.[47][48] Romero combined this idea with an unpublished short story about flesh-eating ghouls,[49] and they began filming with an incomplete script.[43][45] According to Russo, the screenplay written prior to filming only covered events up to the emergence of the Cooper family.[50] Russo completed the script while filming and Romero later expanded the final pages of his short story into the sequels Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985).[51]
Romero drew inspiration from Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954),[52][c] a horror novel about a plague that ravages a futuristic Los Angeles. The infected in I Am Legend become vampire-like creatures and prey on the uninfected.[53][42][54] Matheson described Romero's interpretation as "kind of cornball",[55] and more theft than homage.[56] In an interview, Romero contrasted Night of the Living Dead with I Am Legend. He explained that Matheson wrote about the aftermath of a complete global upheaval; Romero wanted to explore how people would respond to that kind of disaster as it developed.[57]
Much of the dialogue was altered, rewritten, or improvised by the cast.[58] Lead actress Judith O'Dea told an interviewer, "I don't know if there was an actual working script! We would go over what basically had to be done, then just did it the way we each felt it should be done".[18] One example offered by O'Dea concerns a scene where Barbra tells Ben about Johnny's death. O'Dea said that the script vaguely had Barbra talk about riding in the car with Johnny before they were attacked. She described Barbra's dialogue for the scene as entirely improv.[59] Eastman modified the scenes written for Helen and Harry Cooper in the cellar.[40] Karl Hardman attributed Ben's lines to lead actor Duane Jones. Ben was an uneducated truck driver in the script until Jones began to rewrite his character.[60][40]
The lead role was initially written for a white actor, but upon casting black actor Duane Jones, Romero intentionally did not alter the script to reflect this.[61] The film appeared in theaters at a time when very few black actors played leading roles. The rare exceptions, like the consciously black heroes played by Sidney Poitier, were written as subservient to make those characters palatable to white audiences.[62][63] Asked in 2013 if he took inspiration from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in the same year that the movie was made, Romero responded in the negative, noting that he only heard about the shooting when he was on his way to find distribution for the finished film.[61]
Filming
Principal photography
Color photograph of tombstones from the film.
Evans City Cemetery in 2007
Color photograph of the cemetery chapel seen in the film, now with all windows boarded over.
Cemetery Chapel in 2009
The small budget dictated much of the production process.[40][64] Scenes were filmed near Evans City, Pennsylvania, 30 miles (48 km) north of Pittsburgh in rural Butler County;[65] the opening sequence was shot at the Evans City Cemetery on Franklin Road, south of the borough.[66][d] Lacking the money to build or purchase a house for the main set, the filmmakers rented a nearby farmhouse scheduled for demolition. Though it lacked running water, some crew members slept there during the shooting, taking baths in a nearby creek.[69] The building's neglected cellar was not a viable location for filming, so the few basement scenes were shot beneath The Latent Image offices.[70] The basement door shown in the film was cut into a wall by the production team and led nowhere.[71]
Props and special effects were simple and limited by the budget. The blood, for example, was Bosco Chocolate Syrup drizzled over cast members' bodies.[72] The human flesh consumed by ghouls consisted of meat and offal donated by an investor's butcher shop.[73][74] Zombie makeup varied during the film. Initially, makeup was limited to white skin with blackened eyes. As filming progressed, mortician's wax simulated wounds and decaying flesh.[75] Filming took place between July 1967 and January 1968 under various titles. Work began under the generic working title Monster Flick, was changed to Night of Anubis after Romero's short story that provided the basis for the script, and was completed as Night of the Flesh Eaters, a title not used in the final release due to a potential conflict with a similarly named film.[76][77][78] The small budget led Romero to shoot on 35 mm black-and-white film. The completed film ultimately benefited from the decision, as film historian Joseph Maddrey describes the black-and-white filming as "guerrilla-style", resembling "the unflinching authority of a wartime newsreel". He found the exploitation film to resemble a documentary on social instability.[79]
Directing
Karen Cooper leans over her father's bloody corpse holding two handfuls of meat in a still from the film.
Living dead Karen Cooper, eating her father's corpse
Night of the Living Dead was the first feature-length film directed by George A. Romero. His initial work involved filming advertisements, industrial films, and shorts for Pittsburgh public broadcaster WQED's children's series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.[80][81][82] Romero's decision to direct Night of the Living Dead launched his career as a horror director. He took the helm of the sequels as well as Season of the Witch (1972), The Crazies (1973), Martin (1978), Creepshow (1982) and The Dark Half (1993).[83][84] Critics saw the influence of the horror and science-fiction films of the 1950s in Romero's directorial style. Stephen Paul Miller, for instance, witnessed "a revival of fifties schlock shock ... and the army general's television discussion of military operations in the film echoes the often inevitable calling-in of the army in fifties horror films". Miller admits that "Night of the Living Dead takes greater relish in mocking these military operations through the general's pompous demeanor" and the government's inability to source the zombie epidemic or protect the citizenry.[85] Romero described the film's intended mood as a downward arc from near hopelessness to complete tragedy. Film historian Carl Royer praised the film's sophistication—especially considering Romero's limited experience—and noted the use of chiaroscuro (film noir style) lighting to create a mood of increasing alienation.[86]
While some critics dismissed Romero's film because of the graphic scenes, writer R. H. W. Dillard claimed that the "open-eyed detailing" of taboo heightened the film's success. He asked, "What girl has not, at one time or another, wished to kill her mother? And Karen, in the film, offers a particularly vivid opportunity to commit the forbidden deed vicariously."[87] Romero featured social taboos as key themes, especially cannibalism. Film historian Robin Wood interprets the flesh-eating scenes of Night of the Living Dead as a late-1960s critique of American capitalism. Wood argues that the zombies' consumption of people represents the logical endpoint of human interactions under capitalism.[88]
Post-production
Members of Image Ten were involved in filming and post-production, participating in loading camera magazines, gaffing, constructing props, recording sounds and editing.[89] Production stills were shot and printed by Karl Hardman, assisted by a "production line" of other cast members.[40] Upon completion of post-production, Image Ten found it difficult to secure a distributor willing to show the film with the gruesome scenes intact. Columbia rejected the film for its lack of color, and American International Pictures declined after requests to soften it and re-shoot the final scene were rejected by producers.[43] The Walter Reade Organization agreed to show the film uncensored but changed the title from Night of the Flesh Eaters to Night of the Living Dead because of an existing film with a similar title. While changing the title, the copyright notice was accidentally deleted from the early releases of the film.[9][90]
Soundtrack
Duration: 14 minutes and 27 seconds.14:27
Drawn from pre-existing recordings, the music in Night of the Living Dead appears in many other films. The composition from the end credits previously appeared during this 1959 nuclear fallout public service video.[91]
The film's music consisted of existing pieces that were mixed or modified for the film. Much of the soundtrack had been used by previous films.[e] Romero selected tracks from the Hi-Q music library, and Hardman cut them to match the scenes and augmented them with electronic effects.[92][40] A soundtrack album featuring music and dialogue cues from the film was compiled and released on LP by Varèse Sarabande in 1982. In 2008, the recording group 400 Lonely Things released the album Tonight of the Living Dead, an instrumental album with music and sounds sampled from the 1968 film.[93]
Side one
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "Driveway to the Cemetery (Main Theme)" Spencer Moore 02:19
2. "At the Gravesite/Flight/Refuge" William Loose/Loose—Seely/W. Loose 03:42
3. "Farmhouse/First Approach" Geordie Hormel 01:16
4. "Ghoulash (J.R.'s Demise)" Ib Glindemann 03:30
5. "Boarding Up" G. Hormel/Loose—Seely/Glindemann 03:00
6. "First Radio Report/Torch on the Porch" Phil Green/G. Hormel 02:27
7. "Boarding Up 2/Discovery: Gun 'n Ammo" G. Hormel 02:07
8. "Cleaning House" S. Moore 01:36
Side two
No. Title Writer(s) Length
9. "First Advance" Ib Glindemann 02:43
10. "Discovery of TV/Preparing to Escape/Tom & Judy" (All the samples of the track were composed by Geordie Hormel) G. Hormel/J. Meakin/J. Meakin 04:20
11. "Attempted Escape" G. Hormel 01:29
12. "Truck on Fire/Ben Attacks Harry/Leg of Leg*" (*electronic sound effects by Karl Hardman) G. Hormel 03:41
13. "Beat 'Em or Burn 'Em/Final Advance" (Final Advance was composed by Harry Bluestone and Emil Cadkin) G. Hormel 02:50
14. "Helen's Death*/Dawn/Posse in the Fields/Ben Awakes" (*electronic sound effects by Karl Hardman) S. Moore 03:05
15. "O.K. Vince/Funeral Pyre (End Title)" S. Moore 01:10
Release
Premiere controversy
Duration: 1 minute and 50 seconds.1:50
Night of the Living Dead trailer highlighting the film's gore and violence
Night of the Living Dead premiered on October 1, 1968, at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh.[21] Nationally, it was a Saturday afternoon matinée—typical for horror films at the time—and attracted the usual horror film audience of mainly pre-teens and adolescents.[94][95][96] The MPAA film rating system was not in place until the following month, so children were able to purchase tickets. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times chided theater owners and parents who allowed children access to a film they were entirely unprepared for. Ebert noted that the children in the audience initially displayed typical reactions to '60s horror films, including shouting when ghouls appeared on the screen. He said that the atmosphere in the theater shifted to grim silence as the protagonists each began to fail, die, and be consumed—either by fire or the undead.[96] The deaths of Ben, Barbra, and the supporting cast showed audiences an uncomfortable, nihilistic outlook that was unusual for the genre.[97] According to Ebert:
The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying ... It's hard to remember what sort of effect this movie might have had on you when you were six or seven. But try to remember. At that age, kids take the events on the screen seriously, and they identify fiercely with the hero. When the hero is killed, that's not an unhappy ending but a tragic one: Nobody got out alive. It's just over, that's all.[96]
A review in Variety denounced the movie as a moral failing of the film's makers, the horror genre, and regional cinema. The reviewer claimed that the "unrelieved orgy of sadism" was effectively pornography due to its extreme violence.[98] These early denouncements would not limit the film's commercial success or later critical recognition.[99]
Critical reception
The neon marquee of a theater lists several notable cult films including Donnie Darko, Reanimator, and Night of the Living Dead.
Decades after its initial release, a theater runs a midnight showing of the cult classic
Despite the controversy, five years after the premiere Paul McCullough of Take One observed that Night of the Living Dead was the "most profitable horror film ever ... produced outside the walls of a major studio".[100] In the decade after its release, the film grossed over $15 million at the U.S. box office. It was translated into over 25 languages.[101] The Wall Street Journal reported that it was the top-grossing film in Europe in 1968.[87][87] In a 1971 Newsweek article, Paul D. Zimmerman noted that the film had "become a bona fide cult movie for a burgeoning band of blood-lusting cinema buffs".[102]
Decades after its release, the film enjoys a reputation as a classic and still receives positive reviews.[103][104][105] In 2008, the film was ranked by Empire magazine No. 397 of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time.[106] The New York Times also placed the film on their Best 1000 Movies Ever list.[107] In January 2010, Total Film included the film on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time.[108] Rolling Stone named Night of the Living Dead one of The 100 Maverick Movies in the Last 100 Years.[109] Reader's Digest found it to be the 12th scariest movie of all time.[110] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 84 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "George A. Romero's debut set the template for the zombie film, and features tight editing, realistic gore, and a sly political undercurrent."[111] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 89 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[112]
Night of the Living Dead was awarded two distinguished honors decades after its debut. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 1999 with other films deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".[6][33][113][114] In 2001, the film was ranked No. 93 by the American Film Institute on their AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Thrills list, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies.[115] The zombies in the picture were also a candidate for AFI's AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Heroes & Villains, in the villains category, but failed to make the official list.[116] The Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 5th scariest film ever made.[117] The film also ranked No. 9 on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments.[118]
New Yorker critic Pauline Kael called the film "one of the most gruesomely terrifying movies ever made – and when you leave the theatre you may wish you could forget the whole horrible experience. ... The film's grainy, banal seriousness works for it – gives it a crude realism".[119] A Film Daily critic commented, "This is a pearl of a horror picture that exhibits all the earmarks of a sleeper."[120] While Roger Ebert criticized the matinée screening, he admitted that he "admires the movie itself".[96] Critic Rex Reed wrote, "If you want to see what turns a B movie into a classic ... don't miss Night of the Living Dead. It is unthinkable for anyone seriously interested in horror movies not to see it."[121]
Copyright status and home media
In the United States, Night of the Living Dead was mistakenly released into the public domain because the original distributor failed to replace the copyright notice when changing the film's name.[9][122] Image Ten displayed a notice on the title frames of the film beneath the original title, Night of the Flesh Eaters, but the Walter Reade Organization removed it when changing the title.[9][123] At that time, United States copyright law held that public dissemination required copyright notice to maintain a copyright.[124] Several years after the film's release, its creators discovered that the original prints distributed to theaters had no copyright protection.[122]
Because Night of the Living Dead was not copyrighted, it has received hundreds of home video releases on VHS, Betamax, DVD, Blu-ray, and other formats.[125] Over two hundred distinct versions of the film have been released on tapes alone.[126] Numerous versions of the film have appeared on DVD, Blu-ray, and LaserDisc with varying quality.[127] The original film is available to view or download for free on many websites.[f] As of October 2023, it is the Internet Archive's second most-downloaded film, with over 3.5 million downloads.[136]
The film received a VHS release in 1993 through Tempe Video.[137] The next year, a THX certified 25th anniversary Laserdisc was released by Elite Entertainment. It features special features, including commentary, trailers, gallery files, and more.[138] In 1999, Russo's revised version of the film, Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition, was released on VHS and DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment.[137] In 2002, Elite Entertainment released a special edition DVD featuring the original cut.[137] Dimension Extreme released a restored print of the film on DVD.[137] This was followed by a 4K restoration Blu-ray released by The Criterion Collection on February 13, 2018, sourced from a print owned by the Museum of Modern Art and acquired by Janus Films.[139][140] This release also features a workprint edit of the film under the title of Night of Anubis, in addition to various bonus materials.[141] In February 2020, Netflix took down Night of the Living Dead from its streaming service in Germany following a legal request in 2017 because "a version of the film is banned in that country."[142][143]
Revisions
There are numerous revised versions of the film with content added, deleted, rearranged, or more heavily modified. From its initial release into the public domain, Night of the Living Dead was widely screened from inferior prints in grindhouse theaters, a trend that continued among the bottom-tier home video companies. The first major revisions of Night of the Living Dead involved colorization by home video distributors. Hal Roach Studios released a colorized version in 1986 that featured ghouls with pale green skin.[144][145] Another colorized version appeared in 1997 from Anchor Bay Entertainment with grey-skinned zombies.[146] In 2009, Legend Films co-produced a colorized 3D version of the film with PassmoreLab, a company that converts 2-D film into 3-D format.[147] The film was theatrically released on October 14, 2010.[148] According to Legend Films founder Barry Sandrew, Night of the Living Dead is the first entirely live action 2-D film to be converted to 3-D.[149]
In 1999, co-writer Russo released a modified version called Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition.[150] He filmed additional scenes and recorded a revised soundtrack composed by Scott Vladimir Licina. In an interview with Fangoria magazine, Russo explained that he wanted to "give the movie a more modern pace".[151] Russo took liberties with the original script. The additions are neither clearly identified nor even listed. Entertainment Weekly reported "no bad blood" between Russo and Romero. The magazine quoted Romero as saying, "I didn't want to touch Night of the Living Dead".[152] Critics disliked the revised film, notably Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News, who promised to permanently ban anyone from his publication who offered positive criticism of the film.[153][154]
A collaborative animated project known as Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated was screened at several film festivals[155] and was released onto DVD on July 27, 2010, by Wild Eye Releasing.[156][157] This project aims to "reanimate" the 1968 film by replacing Romero's celluloid images with animation done in a wide variety of styles by artists from around the world, laid over the original audio from Romero's version.[158] Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated was nominated in the category of Best Independent Production (film, documentary or short) for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards.[159]
Starting in 2015, and working from the original camera negatives and audio track elements, a 4K digital restoration of Night of the Living Dead was undertaken by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and The Film Foundation.[160] The fully restored version was shown in November 2016 as part of To Save and Project: The 14th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.[161][162] This same restoration was released on Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection on February 13, 2018,[139] and on Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 4, 2022.[163]
Related works
Romero's Dead films
Main article: Night of the Living Dead (film series)
An album with illustrations of hands bursting through the ground, above the words "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
Cover for Dawn of the Dead album
Night of the Living Dead is the first of six ... of the Dead films directed by George Romero. Following the 1968 film, Romero released Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead.[164] Each film traces the evolution of the living dead epidemic in the United States and humanity's desperate attempts to cope with it. As in Night of the Living Dead, Romero peppered the other films in the series with critiques specific to the periods in which they were released.[165][166][167] Romero died with several "Dead" projects unfinished, including the posthumously completed novel The Living Dead[168] and the upcoming film The Twilight of the Dead.[169]
Return of the Living Dead series
Main article: Return of the Living Dead (film series)
The Return of the Living Dead series takes place in an alternate continuity where both the original film and the titular living dead exist. The series has a complicated relationship with Romero's Dead films.[170] Co-writer John Russo wrote the novel Return of the Living Dead (1978) as a sequel to the original film and collaborated with Night alumni Russ Streiner and Rudy Ricci on a screenplay under the same title. In 1981, investment banker Tom Fox bought the rights to the story. Fox brought in Dan O'Bannon to direct and rewrite the script, changing nearly everything but the title.[171][172] O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead arrived in theaters in 1985 alongside Day of the Dead. Romero and his associates attempted to block Fox from marketing his film as a sequel and demanded the name be changed. In a previous court case, Dawn Associates v. Links (1978), they had prevented Illinois-based film distributor William Links from re-releasing an unrelated film under the title Return of the Living Dead. Fox was forced to cease his advertising campaign but allowed to retain the title.[173][172][174][175]
Rise of the Living Dead
George Cameron Romero, the son of director George A. Romero, wrote a prequel to his father's classic, under the working titles Origins and Rise of the Living Dead. George Cameron Romero said that he created Rise of the Living Dead as an homage to his father's work, a glimpse into the political turmoil of the mid-to-late 1960s, and a bookend piece to his father's original story. Despite raising funds for the film on Indiegogo in 2014,[176] as of 2023 the film has yet to go into production.[177] In April 2021, Heavy Metal magazine published the first issue of a graphic novel adaptation of the story titled The Rise from Romero's script and with art by Diego Yapur.[178][179]
Remakes and other related films
Many remakes have attempted to reimagine the original film's story, most notably the 1990 remake written by Romero and directed by special effects artist Tom Savini. Savini had planned to work on the 1968 film before being drafted into the Vietnam War,[180][181] and, after the war, worked with Romero on the sequels.[182] The remake was based on the original screenplay but included a revised plot that portrayed Barbra (Patricia Tallman) as a capable and active heroine.[183] Film historian Barry Grant interprets the new Barbra as a reversal of the original film's portrayal of feminine passivity.[184] He explores how the 1990 Barbra embodies—arguably masculine—virtuous professionalism, as depicted in the works of classic Hollywood director Howard Hawks, a major influence on Romero.[185] Grant describes her as the film's only Hawksian professional. After changing from a mousy outfit that mirrors the original into the visually militaristic clothing she discovers in the farmhouse, Barbra is the lone character able to separate her emotions from the objective necessity to exterminate the living dead.[186] According to Grant, Romero is able to offer one of the most important feminist outlooks in horror because the undead disrupt all traditional values including patriarchy.[187]
The second remake was in 3-D and released in September 2006 under the title Night of the Living Dead 3D, directed by Jeff Broadstreet. Unlike Savini's film, Broadstreet's project was not affiliated with Romero.[188] Broadstreet's film was followed in 2012 by a prequel, Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation.[189]
On September 15, 2009, it was announced that Simon West was producing a 3D animated retelling of the original film, originally titled Night of the Living Dead: Origins 3D and later re-titled Night of the Living Dead: Darkest Dawn.[190][191] The movie is written and directed by Zebediah de Soto. The voice cast includes Tony Todd as Ben, Danielle Harris as Barbra, Joseph Pilato as Harry Cooper, Alona Tal as Helen Cooper, Bill Moseley as Johnny, Tom Sizemore as Chief McClellan and newcomers Erin Braswell as Judy and Michael Diskint as Tom.[192][193][194][195][196][197]
Director Doug Schulze's 2011 film Mimesis: Night of the Living Dead relates the story of a group of horror film fans who become involved in a "real-life" version of the 1968 film.[198][199]
Due to its public domain status, several independent producers have created remakes.
Night of the Living Dead: Resurrection (2012): British filmmaker James Plumb directed this Wales-set remake.[200]
A Night of the Living Dead (2014): Shattered Images Films and Cullen Park Productions released a remake with new twists and characters, written and directed by Chad Zuver.[201]
Rebirth (formerly Night of the Living Dead: Rebirth) (2021):[202] Rising Pulse Productions' updated take on the classic film was released in June 2021 and brings to light present issues that impact modern society such as religious bigotry, homophobia and the influence of social media.[203]
Night of the Animated Dead (2021): Warner Bros. Home Entertainment announced in June 2021 that they were in production of an animated adaptation. Directed by Jason Axinn (To Your Last Death) and featuring the voices of Dulé Hill (Ben), Katharine Isabelle (Barbra), Josh Duhamel (Harry Cooper), James Roday Rodriguez (Tom), Katee Sackhoff (Judy), Will Sasso (Sheriff McClelland), Jimmi Simpson (Johnny) and Nancy Travis (Helen Cooper), it was released via video on demand on September 21, 2021.[204]
Night of the Living Dead II: In June 2021, director Marcus Slabine debuted his secretly filmed sequel.[205] The film stars Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander and Jarlath Conroy of Day of the Dead.[206]
A Night of the Undead (2022) was released to select theaters in October 2022.[207] In January 2023, the film saw wider release. Directed by Kenny Scott Guffey, Jake C. Young and stars Denny Kidd, Briana Phipps-Stotts, and Mason Johnson.[208]
Festival of the Living Dead: In May 2023, the Soska sisters announced an in-universe followup taking place half a century after the events of the 1968 film, starring Ashley Moore and Camren Bicondova. It was set to be released on Tubi in fall 2023.[209][210]
In other media
At the suggestion of Bill Hinzman (the actor who played the zombie that first attacks Barbra in the graveyard and kills her brother Johnny at the beginning of the original film), composers Todd Goodman and Stephen Catanzarite composed an opera Night of the Living Dead based on the film.[211] The Microscopic Opera Company produced its world premiere, which was performed at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, in October 2013.[212] The opera was awarded the American Prize for Theater Composition in 2014.[213]
A play called Night of the Living Dead Live! was published in 2017[214] and has been performed in major cities including Toronto, Leeds and Auckland.[215][216][217]
Legacy
See also: Zombie
A packed crowd in zombie makeup hold a banner reading, "World Record Zombie Walk, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 26, 2006, The It's Alive Show, Pittsburgh East Nissan, Monroeville Mall"
A zombie walk in Monroeville Mall, the setting of Romero's Dawn of the Dead
Romero revolutionized the horror film genre with Night of the Living Dead; according to Almar Haflidason of the BBC, the film represented "a new dawn in horror film-making".[218] The film ushered in the splatter film subgenre. Earlier horror films had largely involved rubber masks, costumes, cardboard sets, and mysterious figures lurking in the shadows. They were set in locations far removed from rural and suburban America.[219] Romero revealed the power behind exploitation and setting horror in ordinary, unexceptional locations and offered a template for making an effective film on a small budget.[220] Night spawned countless imitators in cinema, television, and video gaming.[7] According to author Barry Keith Grant, the slasher films of the 1970s and 1980s such as John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980), and Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) are indebted to Romero's use of gore in a familiar setting.[221]
The film is regarded as one of the launching pads for the modern zombie movie,[222] and effectively redefined the "zombie".[223] Before the film's release, the term "zombie" described a concept from Haitian folklore whereby a bokor could reanimate a corpse into an insensate slave.[224] Early zombie films like White Zombie (1932) combined this with racial and postcolonial anxieties.[225] Romero never used the word "zombie" in the 1968 film or its script—using instead, ghoul—because he said that his flesh-eaters were something new.[21][226][227][61] The term "zombie" was retroactively applied to Night after its cannibalistic undead became the dominant zombie concept in the United States,[228] to such an extent that zombie has become a byword for concepts that failed to "die".[229]
According to professor of religious studies Kim Paffenroth, Romero's antagonists broke with earlier traditions of "voodoo zombies" by having no human villain in control of the zombie and thus no potential to ever restore the monsters' humanity.[230] Compared to the vampires and Haitian zombies that served as inspiration, Romero's antagonists derive more horror from abjection, the disgust that arises from an inability to separate clean from corrupt. While the vampire myth offers a potential escape from mundane life, the zombie offers an infinite decay more abject than conventional death.[231] Cultural critic Steven Shaviro has remarked that—unlike with other movie characters—audiences cannot identify with the zombies because there is no identity left within their bodies, and that they instead provide audiences a combination of disgust and fascinated attraction.[223][232]
Critical analysis
Ben crouches to give shoes to Barbra who is sitting on the couch barefoot
Barbra and Ben after their first meeting
Since its release, many critics and film historians have interpreted Night of the Living Dead as a subversive film that critiques 1960s American society, international Cold War politics and domestic racism.[63] Film historian Robin Wood organized "The American Nightmare"—a sixty-film retrospective combining screenings and director interviews to frame horror in terms of oppression and repression—for the 1979 Toronto International Film Festival. His essay from the program notes, "An Introduction to the American Horror Film", was highly influential, especially in film criticism where horror as a genre had not previously been considered a topic for serious analysis.[233][234] Wood interprets notable horror films including Night through a psychoanalytic framework.[235] He discusses how traits deemed unacceptable are repressed on the personal level or when not repressed, oppressed on the societal level.[235] He identifies repressed taboos and othered groups as the psychological basis for horror monsters.[235] Wood and later critics used this framework to discuss Night as a commentary on repressed sexuality, the marginalized groups of 1960s America, and the disruption to societal norms resulting from the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.[236][237]
Elliot Stein of The Village Voice sees the film as an ardent critique of American involvement in the Vietnam War, arguing that it "was not set in Transylvania, but Pennsylvania – this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam".[238] Film historian Sumiko Higashi concurs, arguing that Night of the Living Dead draws from the visual vocabulary the media used to report on the war, noting especially that the photographs of the napalm girl and the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém would be fresh in the minds of the film's creators and audience.[239] She points to aspects of the Vietnam War paralleled in the film: grainy black-and-white newsreels, search and destroy operations, helicopters, and graphic carnage.[240] In 1968, the news was still broadcast in black and white, and the graphic photographs that appear during the closing credits resemble the contemporary Vietnam War photojournalism.[63]
Critics have compared the shooting of the film's black protagonist to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.[63][241][242] Stein explains, "In this first-ever subversive horror movie, the resourceful black hero survives the zombies only to be surprised by a redneck posse".[238] In 2018, on the film's 50th anniversary, Mark Lager of CineAction noted a clear parallel between the killing and destruction of Ben's body by white police and the violence directed at African Americans during the civil rights movement. Lager described it as a more honest exploration of 1960s America than anything produced by Hollywood.[243]
Film historian Gregory Waller identifies broad-ranging critiques of American institutions including the nuclear family, private homes, media, government, and "the entire mechanism of civil defense".[244] Film historian Linda Badley explains that the film was so horrifying because the monsters were not creatures from outer space or some exotic environment, but rather that "They're us."[245] In the 2009 documentary film Nightmares in Red, White and Blue, the zombies in the film are compared to the "silent majority" of the U.S. in the late 1960s.[246
104
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The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944) - Library of Congress Collection
About this Item
Title
The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress
Names
United States Army Eighth Air Force
Wyler, William
Paramount Pictures, inc.
Kern, Ed
Created / Published
1944
Headings
- Documentary
Genre
Documentary
Notes
- Summary: Documentary about the 25th and last bombing mission of the B-17 bomber, Memphis Belle.
- Credits: Narrated by Ed Kern.
Medium
Film, Video
Call Number/Physical Location
Mavis identifier: 9301
Source Collection
Copyright Collection
Repository
Motion Picture, Broadcasting And Recorded Sound Division
https://www.loc.gov/item/mbrs00009301/
27
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His Girl Friday (1940) Full Film
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell and featuring Ralph Bellamy and Gene Lockhart. It was released by Columbia Pictures. The plot centers on a newspaper editor named Walter Burns who is about to lose his ace reporter and ex-wife, Hildy Johnson, newly engaged to another man. Burns suggests they cover one more story together, getting themselves entangled in the case of murderer Earl Williams as Burns desperately tries to win back his wife. The screenplay was adapted from the 1928 play The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. This was the second time the play had been adapted for the screen, the first occasion being the 1931 film which kept the original title The Front Page.
The script was written by Charles Lederer and Ben Hecht, who is not credited for his contributions. The major change in this version, introduced by Hawks, is that the role of Hildy Johnson is a woman. Filming began in September 1939 and finished in November, seven days behind schedule. Production was delayed because the frequent improvisation and numerous ensemble scenes required many retakes. Hawks encouraged his actors to be aggressive and spontaneous. His Girl Friday has been noted for its surprises, comedy, and rapid, overlapping dialogue. Hawks was determined to break the record for the fastest film dialogue, at the time held by The Front Page. He used a sound mixer on the set to increase the speed of dialogue and held a showing of the two films next to each other to prove how fast his film was.
His Girl Friday was #19 on American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs and was selected in 1993 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[2][3] The film is in the public domain because the copyright was not renewed, though the play it was based on is still under copyright.[4]
Plot
Walter Burns, the hard-boiled editor for The Morning Post, learns his ex-wife and former star reporter, Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson, is about to marry insurance man Bruce Baldwin and settle down as a housewife in Albany. Walter, determined to sabotage these plans, entices a reluctant Hildy to cover one last story: the upcoming execution of Earl Williams, a shy bookkeeper convicted of murdering a policeman. Hildy agrees on the condition that Walter buy a $100,000 life insurance policy from Bruce so he can receive a $1,000 commission. In the meantime, she bribes the warden to let her interview Williams in jail. Williams says he shot the police officer by accident.
Walter does everything he can to keep Hildy from leaving, first accusing Bruce of stealing a watch, forcing Hildy to bail him out of jail. Exasperated, Hildy quits, but when Williams escapes, her journalistic instincts take over. Walter frames Bruce again, and he is immediately sent back to jail. Hildy realizes that Walter is behind the shenanigans, but she prioritizes covering the rapidly escalating Williams story over bailing Bruce out again.
Williams sneaks into the deserted press room and holds Hildy at gunpoint; the lure of a big scoop proves too tempting for her to resist. Williams's friend Mollie comes looking for him. When the other reporters return, Hildy hides the fugitive in a rolltop desk. Mrs. Baldwin, Hildy's future mother-in-law, enters and berates her for the way she is treating Bruce. Upon being harassed for Williams's whereabouts by the reporters, Mollie jumps out of the window to escape. The reporters rush out, saving Williams from being found. Walter arrives and has his henchman Louie kidnap Mrs. Baldwin.
Bruce comes into the press room, having wired Albany for his bail and asking for his mother's whereabouts. Hildy is so consumed with writing the story that she hardly notices; Bruce realizes his cause is hopeless and leaves. A disheveled Louie returns, revealing that he had hit a police car while driving away with Mrs. Baldwin and is unsure if she survived in the accident.
Meanwhile, the crooked mayor and sheriff need the publicity from the execution to keep their jobs in an upcoming election, so when a messenger brings them a reprieve from the governor, they try to bribe the man to go away and return later, after it is too late.
After Williams is discovered in the desk, Walter and Hildy are handcuffed by the sheriff. However, the messenger returns with the reprieve, just in time to save Williams from the gallows. Walter uses the messenger's statements to blackmail the mayor and sheriff into releasing him and Hildy. Hildy receives a call from Bruce, again in jail because of counterfeit money that was unknowingly transferred to him by Hildy from Walter. Hildy breaks down and admits to Walter that she was afraid that he was going to let her marry Bruce without a fight.
After bailing Bruce out of jail again, Walter asks Hildy to remarry him and promises to take her on the honeymoon they never had in Niagara Falls. Then Walter learns that there is a strike in Albany, which is on the way to Niagara Falls. Hildy agrees to honeymoon in Albany, accepting that Walter will never change.
Cast
Cary Grant as Walter Burns
Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson
Ralph Bellamy as Bruce Baldwin
Gene Lockhart as Sheriff Hartwell
Porter Hall as Murphy
Ernest Truex as Bensinger
Cliff Edwards as Endicott
Clarence Kolb as the Mayor
Roscoe Karns as McCue
Frank Jenks as Wilson
Regis Toomey as Sanders
Abner Biberman as Louie
Frank Orth as Duffy
John Qualen as Earl Williams
Helen Mack as Mollie Malloy
Alma Kruger as Mrs. Baldwin
Billy Gilbert as Joe Pettibone
Pat West as Warden Cooley
Edwin Maxwell as Dr. Eggelhoffer
Marion Martin as Evangeline (uncredited)
Production
Director Howard Hawks
Development and writing
While producing Only Angels Have Wings (1939), Howard Hawks tried to pitch a remake of The Front Page to Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures. Cary Grant was almost immediately cast in the film, but Cohn initially intended Grant to play the reporter, with radio commentator Walter Winchell as the editor.[5] Hawks' production that became His Girl Friday was originally intended to be a straightforward adaptation of The Front Page, with both the editor and reporter being male.[a] During auditions, Howard Hawks' secretary, a woman, read reporter Hildy Johnson's lines. Hawks liked the way the dialogue sounded coming from a woman, resulting in the script being rewritten to make Hildy female and the ex-wife of editor Walter Burns played by Cary Grant.[7] Cohn purchased the rights for The Front Page in January 1939.[8]
Although Hawks considered the dialogue of The Front Page to be "the finest modern dialogue that had been written", more than half of it was replaced with what Hawks believed to be better lines.[9] Some of the original dialogue was left the same, as were all of the characters' names with two exceptions: Hildy's fiancé (now no longer a fiancée) was given the name Bruce Baldwin,[8] and the name of the comic messenger bringing the pardon from the governor was changed from Pincus to Pettibone.[10] Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures approved Hawks' idea for the film project. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, the writers of the original play, were unavailable for screenwriting. Consequently, Hawks considered Gene Fowler as the screenwriter, but he declined the job because he disliked the changes to the screenplay Hawks intended to make.[8] Hawks instead recruited Charles Lederer, who had worked on the adaptation for The Front Page, to work on the screenplay.[11] Though he was not credited, Hecht assisted Lederer in the adaptation.[12] Additions were made at the beginning of the screenplay by Lederer to give the characters a convincing backstory; it was decided that Hildy and Walter would be divorced with Hildy's intentions of remarriage serving as Walter's motivation to win her back.[13]
During writing, Hawks was in Palm Springs directing Only Angels Have Wings, but stayed in close contact with Lederer and Hecht.[8] Hecht helped Lederer with some organizational revisions, and Lederer finished the script on May 22. After two more drafts completed by July, Hawks called Morrie Ryskind to revise the dialogue and make it more interesting. Ryskind revised the script throughout the summer and finished by the end of September before filming began. More than half of the original dialogue was rewritten.[8] The film lacks one of the well-known final lines of the play, "the son-of-a-bitch stole my watch!", because films of the time were more censored than Pre-Code Hollywood films, and Hawks felt that the line was too overused. Ryskind developed a new ending in which Walter and Hildy start fighting immediately after saying "I do" in the wedding they hold in the newsroom, with one of the characters stating, "I think it's gonna turn out all right this time." However, after revealing the ending to a few writers at Columbia one evening, Ryskind was surprised to hear that his ending was filmed on another set a few days later.[14] Forced to create another ending, Ryskind ended up thanking the anonymous Columbia writer, because he felt that his ending and one of his final lines, "I wonder if Bruce can put us up", were better than what he had written originally.[14] After reviewing the screenplay, the Hays Office saw no issues with the film, besides a few derogatory comments towards newsmen and some illegal behavior of the characters. During some rewrites for censors, Hawks focused on finding a lead actress for his film.[15]
Casting
Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, and Ralph Bellamy in a promotional picture for the film.
Hawks had difficulty casting His Girl Friday. While the choice of Cary Grant was almost instantaneous, the casting of Hildy was a more extended process. At first, Hawks wanted Carole Lombard, whom he had directed in the screwball comedy Twentieth Century (1934), but the cost of hiring Lombard in her new status as a freelancer proved to be far too expensive, and Columbia could not afford her. Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Sullavan, Ginger Rogers, and Irene Dunne were offered the role, but turned it down. Dunne rejected the role because she felt the part was too small and needed to be expanded. Jean Arthur was suspended by the studio when she refused to take it. Joan Crawford reportedly was considered.[16] Hawks then turned to Rosalind Russell, who had just finished MGM's The Women (1939).[17] Russell was upset when she discovered from a New York Times article that Cohn was "stuck" with her after attempting to cast many other actresses. Before Russell's first meeting with Hawks, to show her apathy, she took a swim and entered his office with wet hair, causing him to do a "triple take". Russell confronted him about this casting issue; he dismissed her quickly and asked her to go to wardrobe.[17]
Filming
John Qualen's character is discovered hiding in a rolltop desk.
After makeup, wardrobe, and photography tests, filming began on 27 September 1939. The film had the working title of The Bigger They Are.[18]
The film is noted for its rapid-fire repartee, using overlapping dialogue to make conversations sound more realistic, with one character speaking before another finishes. Although overlapping dialogue is specified and cued in the 1928 play script by Hecht and MacArthur,[19] Hawks told Peter Bogdanovich:
I had noticed that when people talk, they talk over one another, especially people who talk fast or who are arguing or describing something. So we wrote the dialogue in a way that made the beginnings and ends of sentences unnecessary; they were there for overlapping.[20]
Left to right: Cary Grant, Frank Jenks, Roscoe Karns, Gene Lockhart, Pat Flaherty, Porter Hall, Alma Kruger, and Rosalind Russell in one of the final scenes of the film.
To get the effect he wanted, as multi-track sound recording was not yet available at the time, Hawks had the sound mixer on the set turn the various overhead microphones on and off as required for the scene, as many as 35 times.[18] Reportedly, the film was sped up because of a challenge Hawks took upon himself to break the record for the fastest dialogue on screen, at the time held by The Front Page.[21] Hawks arranged a showing for newsmen of the two films next to each other to prove how fast his dialogue was.[22]
Hawks gave the actors the freedom to improvise some of their lines and actions, as he did with his comedies more than his dramas.[21] In her autobiography Life Is a Banquet, Russell wrote that she thought she did not have as many good lines as Grant, so she hired her own writer to "punch up" her dialogue. With Hawks encouraging ad-libbing, she was able to slip her writer's work into the movie. Only Grant was wise to this tactic and greeted her each morning with "What have you got today?"[23] Her ghostwriter gave her some of the lines for the restaurant scene, which is unique[clarification needed] to His Girl Friday. It was one of the most complicated scenes to film; because of the rapidity of the dialogue the actors actually ate very little during the scene. Hawks shot this scene with one camera a week and a half into production, and it took four days to film instead of the intended two.[24] The improvisations made it difficult for the cinematographers to know what the characters were going to do. Russell was also difficult to film because her lack of a sharp jawline required makeup artists to paint and blend a dark line under her jawline while shining a light on her face to simulate a more youthful appearance.[22]
Hawks encouraged aggressiveness and unexpectedness in the acting, breaking the fourth wall a few times in the film. At one point, Grant broke character because of something unscripted that Russell did and looked directly at the camera, saying "Is she going to do that?" Hawks decided to leave this scene in, although it does not appear in the final cut.[22]
Owing to the numerous ensemble scenes, many retakes were necessary. Having learned from Bringing Up Baby (1938), Hawks added some straight supporting characters in order to balance out the leading characters.[24]
Arthur Rosson worked for three days on second unit footage at Columbia Ranch.
Filming was completed on 21 November1939, seven days past schedule.
Unusually for the time period, the film contains no music except for the music that leads to the final fade out of the film.[25]
Ad-libs by Grant
Grant's character describes Bellamy's character by saying "He looks like that fellow in the movies, you know ... Ralph Bellamy!" According to Bellamy, the remark was ad-libbed by Grant.[16] Columbia studio head Harry Cohn thought it was too cheeky and ordered it removed, but Hawks insisted that it stay. Grant makes several other "inside" remarks in the film. When his character is arrested for kidnapping, he describes the horrendous fate suffered by the last person who crossed him: Archie Leach (Grant's birth name).[26] Another line that people think is an inside remark is when Earl Williams attempts to get out of the rolltop desk he's been hiding in, Grant says, "Get back in there, you Mock Turtle." The line is a "cleaned-up" version of a line from the stage version of The Front Page ("Get back in there, you God damned turtle!") and Grant also played "The Mock Turtle" in the 1933 film version of Alice in Wonderland.[18]
Release
Release of the film was rushed by Cohn and a sneak preview of the film was held in December, with a press screening on January 3, 1940.[25] His Girl Friday premiered in New York City at Radio City Music Hall on January 11, 1940, and went into general American release a week later.[27][28]
Reception
Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell
Contemporary reviews from critics were very positive. Critics were particularly impressed by the gender change of the reporter.[25] Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times wrote "Except to add that we've seen The Front Page under its own name and others so often before we've grown a little tired of it, we don't mind conceding His Girl Friday is a bold-faced reprint of what was once—and still remains—the maddest newspaper comedy of our times."[29] The Variety reviewer wrote "The trappings are different—even to the extent of making reporter Hildy Johnson a femme—but it is still Front Page and Columbia need not regret it. Charles Leder (sic) has done an excellent screenwriting job on it and producer-director Howard Hawks has made a film that can stand alone almost anywhere and grab healthy grosses."[30] Harrison's Reports wrote "Even though the story and its development will be familiar to those who saw the first version of The Front Page, they will be entertained just the same, for the action is so exciting that it holds one in tense suspense throughout."[31] Film Daily wrote "Given a snappy pace, a top flight cast, good production and able direction, the film has all the necessary qualities for first-rate entertainment for any type of audience."[32] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote that after years of "feeble, wispy, sad imitations" of The Front Page, he found this authentic adaptation of the original to be "as fresh and undated and bright a film as you could want".[33] Louis Marcorelles called His Girl Friday "le film américain par excellence".[34]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 99% based on 100 reviews, with an average rating of 9.00/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Anchored by stellar performances from Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday is possibly the definitive screwball romantic comedy."[35]
In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, His Girl Friday appeared on several lists, including those of critic David Thomson[36] and director Quentin Tarantino.[37]
Interpretation
Story
Left to right: Ralph Bellamy, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell
Irving Bacon, Cary Grant, Ralph Bellamy and Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell, Cary Grant, Billy Gilbert, Clarence Kolb and Gene Lockhart
Cary Grant with Rosalind Russell; Russell wears a costume designed by Robert Kalloch
The title His Girl Friday is an ironic title, because a girl "Friday" represents a servant of a master, but Hildy is not a servant in the film, but rather the equal to Walter. The world in this film is not determined by gender, but rather by intelligence and capability. At the beginning of the film, Hildy says that she wants to be "treated like a woman", but her return to her profession reveals her true desire to live a different life.[38] In His Girl Friday, even though the characters remarry, Hawks displays an aversion to marriage, home, and family through his approach to the film. Specific, exclusionary camera work and character control of the frame and the dialogue portray a subtle criticism of domesticity. [39] The subject of domesticity is fairly absent throughout the film. Even among the relationships between Grant and Russell and Bellamy and Russell, the relationships are positioned within a larger frame of the male-dominated newsroom.[39] The film, like many comedies, celebrates difficult, tumultuous love rather than secure, suburban love through its preference for movement and argument rather than silent poise.[40] Film critic Molly Haskell wrote that the scene near the end of the film when Hildy sheds tears was not included to expose her femininity, but to express the confusion she felt due to the collision of her professional and feminine natures. The feminine side of Hildy desires to be subservient and sexually desirable to men, while the other side of Hildy desires assertion and to forfeit the stereotypical duties of a woman. Her tears represent her emotional helplessness and inability to express anger to a male authority figure.[41]
A commonality in many Howard Hawks films is the revelation of the amorality of the main character and a failure of that character to change or develop. In His Girl Friday, Walter Burns manipulates, acts selfishly, frames his ex-wife's fiancé, and orchestrates the kidnapping of an elderly woman. Even at the end of the film, Burns convinces Hildy Johnson to remarry him despite how much she loathes him and his questionable actions. Upon the resumption of their relationship, there is no romance visible between them. They do not kiss, embrace, or even gaze at each other. It is evident that Burns is still the same person he was in their previous relationship as he quickly waves off the plans for the honeymoon that they never had in pursuit of a new story. Additionally, he walks in front of her when exiting the room, forcing her to carry her own suitcase despite Johnson already having criticized this at the beginning of the film. This hints that the marriage is fated to face the same problems that ended it previously.[42]
Hawks is known for his use of repeated or intentional gestures in his films. In His Girl Friday, the cigarette in the scene between Hildy and Earl Williams serves several symbolic roles in the film. First, the cigarette establishes a link between the characters when Williams accepts the cigarette even though he does not smoke. However, the fact that he doesn't smoke, and they don't share the cigarette shows the difference between and separation of the worlds in which the two characters live.[43]
The film contains two main plots: the romantic and the professional. Walter and Hildy work together to attempt to release wrongly convicted Earl Williams, while the concurrent plot is Walter attempting to win back Hildy. The two plots do not resolve at the same time, but they are interdependent because although Williams is released before Walter and Hildy get back together, he is the reason for their reconciliation.[44] The speed of the film results in snappy and overlapping dialogue among interruptions and rapid speech. Gesture, character and camera movement, as well as editing, serve to complement the dialogue in increasing the pace of the film. There is a clear contrast between the fast-talking Hildy and Walter and slow-talking Bruce and Earl, which serves to emphasize the gap between the intelligent and the unintelligent in the film. The average word per minute count of the film is 240 while the average American speech is around 140 words per minute. There are nine scenes with at least four words per second and at least two with more than five words per second.[45] Hawks attached verbal tags before and after specific script lines so the actors would be able to interrupt and talk over each other without making the necessary dialogue incomprehensible.[46]
Film theorist and historian David Bordwell explained the ending of His Girl Friday as a "closure effect" rather than a closure. The ending of the film is rather circular, and there is no development of characters, specifically Walter Burns, and the film ends similarly to the way in which it starts. Additionally, the film ends with a brief epilogue in which Walter announces their remarriage and reveals their intention to go cover a strike in Albany on the way to their honeymoon. The fates of the main characters and even some of the minor characters such as Earl Williams are revealed, although there are minor flaws in the resolution. For example, they do not discuss what happened to Molly Malloy after the conflict is resolved. However, the main characters’ endings were wrapped up so neatly that it overshadows the need for the minor characters' endings to be wrapped up. This creates a "closure effect" or an appearance of closure.[47]
Editing style
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Magazine ad for the film
Frank Jenks, Roscoe Karns, Rosalind Russell, Porter Hall, Gene Lockhart, Regis Toomey, and Cliff Edwards
Roscoe Karns, Cliff Edwards, Porter Hall, Regis Toomey, and Frank Jenks
His Girl Friday is a movie intentioned for speed: it set the record on fastest words spoken per minute in a movie.[48] A second to appreciate the moment is a foregone luxury in the whirlwind nature of the publishing business. Dissecting one of the scenes from the movie to best display the editing style, consider the specific scene where Earl Williams escapes. Howard Hawks emphasizes the pace difference between Hildy’s two possible lives, by having plot elements and staging mirror the editing, where slow and languid moments are interspersed with sub-second shots of newsworthy freneticism. To emphasize the contrast of rhythm between Hildy’s domestic life with Bruce versus her dynamic life with Walter, the director mirrors with editing techniques like lengthier contemplative shots versus rapid fire shots, matches on action versus elliptical shots with continuous diegetic sound, and scenes with one element of focus versus several different objects and sounds splitting our attention.[49]
The scene opens with two lengthy (10 second) shots of Hildy describing her life outside the newsroom—the shots reinforce the idea that the life with Bruce will be predictable and slowly paced. As Hildy looks off away from the camera for the first time, literally turning her back on the newspaper life for just an instant, her attention is snapped back to newsroom as shots are fired. Immediately, the editing reflects the newfound fast pace: from slow pans to static shots with the only movement as Hildy’s slow walking, the movie immediately shifts to dynamic shots with several people’s movements on the street, as well as gunshots, ducking, spotlight-exaggerated lighting shifts, and shouting with the men in the window. The medium shots of the frantic news reporters are in contrast with a now obscured long shot of Hildy—while previously she was the main character and source of sound, the director makes it clear that she will be suddenly relegated to the background when the action is happening: her background presence is obscured by a frosted window, and her sounds obscured by the frenzy of the gunshots and shouting.[50]
Upon hearing Earl Williams escaped, the movie then shifts from multi-second shots to sub-second shots as the news editors enter maximum monkey mode. As gunshots provide a diegetic backdrop of time, ellipses shots become more obvious; the first reporter immediately cuts from reaching the table to talking on the phone. The next 5 shots are also sub-second close-ups of newsmen yelling into phones. As she is slowly drawn into this world again, Hildy begins to occupy more of the frame—going from a long shot to a medium shot as the newsmen stream past her. Once the men are gone, the longest shot of the sequence ensues: 16 seconds as she closes the distance she created from her old life, shedding her coat, symbolizing her chilly life in Albany, to reveal the reporter-ready dress underneath, the person she truly is. She fully reunites with it as she picks up the phone to talk to Walter, then rushes out of the room with the same fervor as the news folk. The camera cements this final switch as the dolly moves out, and a crossfade ensues on her running out, unlike all the prior cuts.[51]
Finally it concludes on shots of gates opening, cars streaming out, and people running. Here, Hawks’ shots are not just fast—they are explicit about being faster than time. A diegetic siren delineates unit seconds as cars screech, but the film shows the abbreviated ellipses shot of the gate closing, skipping the time with a shot of guards running. This sequence is faster than real time, and the contrast with the siren shows how time in the news reporters world is faster paced than the world around them. Hildy joins the chaos shouting ‘HEY!’, providing a final contrast to the start of the scene where she described the idyllic and calm city life she was originally headed for.[52]
Throughout this sequence, Hawks is explicit about the passage of time and focus of characters through his edits and mocks the slow Albany life Hildy begins with by showcasing the romantic frenzy of news life through shot timing, continuity of action, and shifting attention-grabbing elements.[53]
Women reporters
According to Pauline Kael, all female reporters in newspaper films are based on Adela Rogers St. Johns.[54]
Legacy
His Girl Friday (often along with Bringing Up Baby and Twentieth Century) is cited as an archetype of the screwball comedy genre.[55] In 1993, the Library of Congress selected His Girl Friday for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.[56] The film ranked 19th on the American Film Institute's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs, a 2000 list of the funniest American comedies.[57] Prior to His Girl Friday, the play The Front Page had been adapted for the screen once before, in the 1931 film, also called The Front Page, produced by Howard Hughes, with Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien in the starring roles.[58] In this first film adaptation of the Broadway play of the same title (written by former Chicago newsmen Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur), Hildy Johnson was male.[29]
His Girl Friday was dramatized as a one-hour radio play on the September 30, 1940, broadcast of Lux Radio Theatre, with Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray and Jack Carson.[59] It was dramatized again with a half-hour version on The Screen Guild Theater on March 30, 1941, with Grant and Russell reprising their film roles.[60][61] The Front Page was remade in a 1974 Billy Wilder movie starring Walter Matthau as Walter Burns, Jack Lemmon as Hildy Johnson, and Susan Sarandon as his fiancée.[62][63]
His Girl Friday and the original Hecht and MacArthur play were adapted into another stage play His Girl Friday by playwright John Guare. This was presented at the National Theatre in London from May to November 2003, with Alex Jennings as Burns and Zoë Wanamaker as Hildy.[64][65] The 1988 film Switching Channels was loosely based on His Girl Friday, with Burt Reynolds in the Walter Burns role, Kathleen Turner in the Hildy Johnson role, and Christopher Reeve in the role of Bruce.[66] In December 2017, Montreal-based independent theatre company, Snowglobe Theatre's Artistic Director, Peter Giser, adapted the script for the stage, expanded some characters, and made the play more accessible to modern audiences. It was performed that December after Snowglobe obtained copyright status of this adapted version.[67]
Director Quentin Tarantino has named His Girl Friday as one of his favorite movies.[68] In the 2004 French film Notre musique, the film is used by Godard as he explains the basic of filmmaking, specifically the shot reverse shot. As he explains this concept, two stills from His Girl Friday are shown with Cary Grant in one photo and Rosalind Russell in the other. He explains that upon looking closely, the two shots are actually the same shot, "because the director is incapable of seeing the difference between a man and a woman."[69]
Rosalind Russell's performance as Hildy Johnson was cited[citation needed] as the model for the character of Lois Lane in the Superman franchise.
https://archive.org/details/HisGirlFriday-1940
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Casablanca (1942) - Full Film
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) and helping her husband (Henreid), a Czechoslovak resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.
Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series early in 1942. Howard Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned a month later. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, ending on August 3; the film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California, with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Los Angeles.
Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to stand out among the many pictures produced by Hollywood yearly.[7] Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier.[8] It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run.
Exceeding expectations, Casablanca went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Curtiz was selected as Best Director and the Epsteins and Koch were honored for Best Adapted Screenplay. Its reputation has gradually grown, to the point that its lead characters,[9] memorable lines,[10] and pervasive theme song[11] have all become iconic, and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film as one of the first for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
Black-and-white film screenshot of several people in a nightclub. A man on the far left is wearing a suit and has a woman standing next to him wearing a hat and dress. A man at the center is looking at the man on the left. A man on the far right is wearing a suit and looking at the other people.
Left to right: Henreid, Bergman, Rains and Bogart
Duration: 2 minutes and 15 seconds.2:15
Original trailer
In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and Nazi German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia in 1935 and fought on the Loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War.
Petty crook Ugarte boasts to Rick of letters of transit obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club and persuades Rick to hold them. Before he can meet his contact, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that Rick has the letters.
Then the reason for Rick's cynical nature—former lover Ilsa Lund—enters his establishment. Spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play "As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order never to perform that song again, and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned fugitive Czechoslovak Resistance leader. A flashback reveals Ilsa left Rick without explanation when the couple were planning to flee as the German army neared Paris, embittering Rick. Laszlo and Ilsa need the letters to escape, while German Major Strasser arrives in Casablanca to prevent just that.
When Laszlo makes inquiries, Signor Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Laszlo returns to Rick's cafe that night and tries to buy them. Rick refuses to sell, telling Laszlo to ask his wife why. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of German officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein". Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". When the bandleader looks to Rick, the latter nods, and Laszlo begins to sing. Patriotic fervor grips the crowd, and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. Afterwards, Strasser has Renault close the club on a flimsy pretext.
Black-and-white film screenshot of a man and woman as seen from the shoulders up. The two are close to each other as if about to kiss.
Bogart and Bergman
Later, Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café; when he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. Then she learned that Laszlo was alive and hiding near Paris. She left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband. Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting her believe she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety.
When the police arrest Laszlo on a trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will use the letters to leave for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, however, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life." Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. When Strasser attempts to stop the plane, Rick shoots him dead. Policemen arrive. Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects." He suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Cast
Black-and-white film screenshot of two men, both wearing suits. The man on the left is older and is nearly bald; the man on the right has black hair. In the background several bottles of alcohol can be seen.
Greenstreet and Bogart
The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras.[12] The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States (Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page). The top-billed actors are:[13]
Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine
Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role".[14] The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes".[15] Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michèle Morgan. Producer Hal Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.[16]
Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael[17]), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor"; Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna".[18]
The second-billed actors are:
Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault
Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. Veidt was a refugee German actor who had fled the Nazis with his Jewish wife, but frequently played Nazis in American films. He was the highest paid member of the cast despite his second billing.[19]
Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari
Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte
Also credited are:
Curt Bois as the pickpocket. Bois had one of the longest careers in cinema, spanning over 80 years.
Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. Kinskey told Aljean Harmetz, author of Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca, that he was cast because he was Bogart's drinking buddy. He was not the first choice for the role; he replaced Leo Mostovoy, who was deemed not funny enough.[20]
Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. Lebeau was a French refugee who had left Nazi-occupied Europe with her husband Marcel Dalio, who was a fellow Casablanca performer. She was the last surviving cast member until her death on May 1, 2016.[21]
Joy Page, the step-daughter of studio head Jack L. Warner, as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee
John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact
S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter
Dooley Wilson as Sam. Wilson was one of the few American-born members of the cast. A drummer, he had to fake playing the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, producer Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.[22]
Notable uncredited actors are:
Marcel Dalio as Emil the croupier. Dalio had been a star in French cinema, appearing in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu
Helmut Dantine as Jan Brandel, the Bulgarian roulette player married to Annina Brandel
Gregory Gaye as the German banker who is refused entry to the casino by Rick
Torben Meyer as the Dutch banker who runs "the second largest banking house in Amsterdam"
Corinna Mura as the guitar player who sings "Tango Delle Rose" (or "Tango de la Rosa") and later accompanies the crowd on "La Marseillaise"
Frank Puglia as a Moroccan rug merchant
Richard Ryen as Colonel Heinze, Strasser's aide
Dan Seymour as Abdul the doorman
Gerald Oliver Smith as the Englishman whose wallet is stolen
Norma Varden as the Englishwoman whose husband has his wallet stolen
Much of the emotional impact of the film, for the audience in 1942, has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles (in addition to leading actors Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre), such as Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized that they were all real refugees".[23] Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting".[24] Even though many were Jewish or refugees from the Nazis (or both), they were frequently cast as Nazis in various war films, because of their accents.
Jack Benny may have appeared in an unbilled cameo, as was claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement and in the Casablanca press book.[25][26][27] When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say."[26] In a later column, he responded to a follow-up commenter, "I think you're right. The Jack Benny Fan Club can feel vindicated".[28]
Writing
The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's.[29] The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum"[30] and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the script on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000 (equivalent to $290,000 in 2021),[31] the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play.[32] The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit Algiers.[33] Casablanca also shares many narrative and thematic similarities with Algiers (1938), which itself is a remake of the acclaimed 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, directed and co-written by Julien Duvivier.[34]
The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the antisemitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam.[35] In The Guardian, Paul Fairclough wrote that Cinema Vox in Tangier "was Africa's biggest when it opened in 1935, with 2,000 seats and a retractable roof. As Tangier was in Spanish territory [sic], the theatre's wartime bar heaved with spies, refugees and underworld hoods, securing its place in cinematic history as the inspiration for Rick's Cafe in Casablanca."[36][37] The scene of the singing of "La Marseillaise" in the bar is attributed by the film scholar Julian Jackson as an adaptation of a similar scene from Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion five years prior.[38]
The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein[39] who, against the wishes of Warner Bros., left at Frank Capra's request early in 1942 to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C.[40][41] While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced thirty to forty pages.[41] When the Epstein brothers returned after about a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and—contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books—his work was not used.[41] The Epstein brothers and Koch never worked in the same room at the same time during the writing of the script. In the final budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, (equivalent to $398,552 in 2021) and Koch earned $4,200 (equivalent to $55,797 in 2021).[42]
In the play, the Ilsa character is an American named Lois Meredith; she does not meet Laszlo until after her relationship with Rick in Paris has ended. Rick is a lawyer. The play (set entirely in the cafe) ends with Rick sending Lois and Laszlo to the airport. To make Rick's motivation more believable, Wallis, Curtiz, and the screenwriters decided to set the film before the attack on Pearl Harbor.[43]
The possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film
"set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Laszlo. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people."[44]
It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the Motion Picture Production Code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this outcome would be engineered.[45] According to Julius Epstein, he and Philip were driving when they simultaneously came up with the idea for Renault to order the roundup of "the usual suspects", after which all the details needed for resolution of the story, including the farewell between Bergman and "a suddenly noble Bogart", were rapidly worked out.[46]
The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe.[47][48] Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements,[49][50] and Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.[51]
In a telegram to film editor Owen Marks on August 7, 1942, Wallis suggested two possible final lines of dialogue for Rick: "Louis, I might have known you'd mix your patriotism with a little larceny" or "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship".[52] Two weeks later, Wallis settled on the latter, which Bogart was recalled to dub a month after shooting had finished.[51]
Bogart's line "Here's looking at you, kid", said four times, was not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to a comment he made to Bergman as she played poker with her English coach and hairdresser between takes.[53]
Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's that had accounted for this. "Surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance."[54] Julius Epstein later noted the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better".[55]
The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from visa applicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together.[56][57] Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly.[58] Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick exclaims, "What the —— are you playing?" This line was altered to "Sam, I thought I told you never to play ..." to conform to Breen's objection to an implied swear word.[59]
Production
Bogart in the airport scene
Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to production starting on May 25.[60] Filming was completed on August 3. It went $75,000 over budget for a total cost of $1,039,000 (equivalent to $13,803,000 in 2021),[61] above average for the time.[62] Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.[63]
The entire picture was shot in the studio except for the sequence showing Strasser's arrival and close-ups of the Lockheed Electra (filmed at Van Nuys Airport) and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris.[64] The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song,[65] and redressed for the Paris flashbacks.
The film critic Roger Ebert called Wallis the "key creative force" for his attention to the details of production (down to insisting on a real parrot in the Blue Parrot bar).[15]
The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together.[66]
Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending".[67][19]
The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane.[68] Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance.[69]
Direction
Wallis's first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz.[70][19] Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ...are memorable as shots", as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone.[15] He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ...he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories".[71]
Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory",[72] of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "...nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory".[70] Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.[73]
Some of the second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel.[74]
Cinematography
The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman. She was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle; the whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic".[15] Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil.[15] Dark film noir and expressionist lighting was used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device.[75]
Soundtrack
The music was written by Max Steiner, who wrote scores for King Kong and Gone with the Wind. The song "As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not reshoot the scenes that incorporated the song,[a] so Steiner based the entire score on it and "La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them as leitmotifs to reflect changing moods.[76] Even though Steiner disliked "As Time Goes By", he admitted in a 1943 interview that it "must have had something to attract so much attention".[77] Dooley Wilson, who played Sam, was a drummer but not a pianist, so his piano playing was performed by Jean Plummer.[78]
Particularly memorable is the "duel of the anthems" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe.[19] In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the "Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead "Die Wacht am Rhein" was used.[79] The "Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, is used several times in minor mode as a leitmotif for the German threat, e.g. in the scene in Paris as it is announced that the German army will reach Paris the next day. It is featured in the final scene, giving way to "La Marseillaise" after Strasser is shot.[80][19]
Other songs include:
"It Had to Be You", music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn
"Shine", music by Ford Dabney, lyrics by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown
"Avalon", music and lyrics by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose
"Perfidia", by Alberto Dominguez
"The Very Thought of You", by Ray Noble
"Knock on Wood", music by M. K. Jerome, lyrics by Jack Scholl, the only original song.
Very few films in the early 1940s had portions of the soundtrack released on 78 rpm records, and Casablanca was no exception. In 1997, almost 55 years after the film's premiere, Turner Entertainment in collaboration with Rhino Records issued the film's first original soundtrack album for release on compact disc, including original songs and music, spoken dialogue, and alternate takes.[81]
The piano featured in the Paris flashback sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder.[82] The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York on November 24, 2014, sold for $3.4 million.[83][84]
Release
Although an initial release date was anticipated for early 1943,[85] the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to capitalize on Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of French North Africa) and the capture of Casablanca.[8][86] It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.[87]
Irish and German cuts
On March 19, 1943, the film was banned in Ireland for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order preserving wartime neutrality, by portraying Vichy France and Nazi Germany in a "sinister light". It was passed with cuts on June 15, 1945, shortly after the EPO was lifted. The cuts were made to dialogue between Rick and Ilsa referring to their love affair.[88] A version with only one scene cut was passed on July 16, 1974; Irish national broadcaster RTÉ inquired about showing the film on TV, but found it still required a dialogue cut to Ilsa expressing her love for Rick.[89]
Warner Brothers released a heavily edited version of Casablanca in West Germany in 1952. All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail". The West German version was 25 minutes shorter than the original cut. A German version of Casablanca with the original plot was not released until 1975.[90]
Reception
Initial response
Casablanca received "consistently good reviews".[91] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners ... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." He applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue." Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot" and praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".[92]
The trade paper Variety commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o."[93] The review observed that the "[f]ilm is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way".[93] Variety also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and noted, "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."[93]
Some reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated Casablanca only "pretty tolerable" and said it was "not quite up to Across the Pacific, Bogart's last spyfest".[94]
At the 1,500-seat Hollywood Theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks (equivalent to $3.4 million in 2021).[95] In its initial American release, Casablanca was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, earning $3.7 million (equivalent to $49 million in 2021).[95][96] A 50th-anniversary re-release grossed $1.5 million in 1992.[97] According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $3,398,000 domestically and $3,461,000 in foreign markets.[4]
Enduring popularity
In the decades since its release, the film has grown in reputation. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow".[98] By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third-most-successful of Warners' wartime movies, behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army.[99] On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It proved so popular that a tradition began in which Casablanca would be screened during the week of final exams at Harvard University. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage".[100] The tradition helped the film remain popular while other films that had been famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, Casablanca had become the most frequently broadcast film on American television.[101]
Ingrid Bergman's portrayal of Ilsa Lund in Casablanca became one of her best-known roles.[102] In later years she said, "I feel about Casablanca that it has a life of its own. There is something mystical about it. It seems to have filled a need, a need that was there before the film, a need that the film filled."[103]
On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.[104]
Roger Ebert, wrote of Casablanca in 1992, "There are greater movies. More profound movies. Movies of greater artistic vision or artistic originality or political significance. ... But [it is] one of the movies we treasure the most ... This is a movie that has transcended the ordinary categories."[105] In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good" and it is "a wonderful gem".[15] Ebert said that he had never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character of Laszlo as portrayed by Paul Henreid.[71]
The critic Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time".[106]
According to Rudy Behlmer, the character of Rick is "not a hero ... not a bad guy" because he does what is necessary to appease the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". Behlmer feels that the other characters are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing".[71] Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture. "It's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue."[71]
A remembrance written for the film's 75th anniversary published by The Washington Free Beacon said, "It is no exaggeration to say Casablanca is one of the greatest films ever made," making special note of the "intellectual nature of the film" and saying that "while the first time around you might pay attention to only the superficial love story, by the second and third and fourth viewings the sub-textual politics [of communitarianism and anti-isolationism] have moved to the fore".[107]
A few reviewers have expressed reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism ..."[108] Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards ... Casablanca is a very mediocre film". He viewed the changes that the characters manifest as inconsistent rather than complex. "It is a comic strip, a hotchpotch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that because of the presence of multiple archetypes that allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a film reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe".[109]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 99% of 127 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The website's consensus reads, "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman."[110] On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[111] It is one of the few films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.[112]
In the November/December 1982 issue of Film Comment, Chuck Ross wrote that he retyped the Casablanca screenplay, reverting the title to Everybody Comes to Rick's and changing the name of Sam the piano player to Dooley (after Dooley Wilson, who played the character), and submitted it to 217 agencies. The majority of agencies returned the script unread (often because of policies regarding unsolicited screenplays) or did not respond. However, of those which did respond, only 33 specifically recognized it as Casablanca. Eight others observed that it was similar to Casablanca, and 41 agencies rejected the screenplay outright, offering comments such as "Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, the story line was weak, and in general didn't hold my interest." Three agencies offered to represent the screenplay, and one suggested turning it into a novel.[113][114][115]
Influence on later works
Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille (1944) reunited actors Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, and Lorre and director Curtiz in 1944,[116] and there are similarities between Casablanca and a later Bogart film, To Have and Have Not (also 1944).[117] Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and Out Cold (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects.[118] Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca character as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character.[119]
The film was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian Brazil (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon.[120] The film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film Barb Wire (1996) was identical to that of Casablanca.[121] In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam.[122] The 2016 musical film La La Land contains allusions to Casablanca in the imagery, dialogue, and plot.[123] Robert Zemeckis, director of Allied (2016), which is also set in 1942 Casablanca, studied the film to capture the city's elegance.[124] The 2017 Moroccan drama film Razzia, directed by Nabil Ayouch, is mostly set in the city of Casablanca, and its characters frequently discuss the 1942 film.[125]
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Dick Tracy - Serial 4 Death Rides The Sky (1937)
Dick Tracy (1937) is a 15-chapter Republic movie serial starring Ralph Byrd based on the Dick Tracy comic strip by Chester Gould. It was directed by Alan James and Ray Taylor.
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain The Spider/The Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.
Plot
Dick Tracy's foe for this serial is the crime boss and masked mystery villain the Spider/the Lame One (both names are used) and his Spider Ring.[3] In the process of various crimes, including using his flying wing and sound weapon to destroy the Bay Bridge in San Francisco and stealing an experimental "speed plane", The Spider captures Dick Tracy's brother, Gordon. The Spider's minion, Dr. Moloch, performs a brain operation on Gordon Tracy to turn him evil, making him secretly part of the Spider Ring and so turning brother against brother.
Directed by: Alan James, Ray Taylor
Produced by: Nat Levine, J. Laurence Wickland (Associate)
Written by: Morgan B. Cox, George Morgan, Barry Shipman, Winston Miller, Chester Gould (comic strip)
Music by: Harry Grey
Cinematography: William Nobles, Edgar Lyons
Edited by: Helene Turner, Edward Todd, William Witney
Distributed by: Republic Pictures
Release date: February 20, 1937 (U.S. serial)
Running time: 15 chapters / 290 minutes (serial)
Country: United States
Language: English
Starring cast
Ralph Byrd as Dick Tracy
Kay Hughes as Gwen Andrews
Smiley Burnette as Mike McGurk
Lee Van Atta as Junior
John Picorri as Dr Moloch
Richard Beach as Gordon Tracy (pre-operation in Chapter 1)
Carleton Young as Gordon Tracy (post-operation in Chapter 1)
Fred Hamilton as Steve Lockwood
Francis X. Bushman as Clive Anderson
Supporting cast
John Dilson as Ellery Brewster
Wedgwood Nowell as H. T. Clayton
Theodore Lorch as Paterno
Edwin Stanley as Walter Odette (The Spider/ The Lame One)
Harrison Greene as Cloggerstein
Herbert Weber as Tony Martino
Buddy Roosevelt as Burke
George DeNormand as Flynn
Byron K. Foulger as Kovitch
- In this serial, Dick Tracy is a G-Man (FBI) in San Francisco rather than a Midwestern city police detective as in the comic strip.
- Most of the Dick Tracy supporting cast and rogues gallery were also dropped and new, original characters used instead
- There were three sequels to this serial: Dick Tracy Returns (1938), Dick Tracy's G-Men (1939), and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. (1941)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tr...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Tracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Byrd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republi...
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The Pay Off (1935) - Full Film - Public Domain
This is about a crime fighting newspaperman. Brad McKay, played by Lee Tracy, whom I have never heard of, works with the police to solve a case involving $100k and some murders. He is wisecracking and thinks his way, rapidly, out of the surprises.
Visit: VintageNewscast.com
Addeddate 2008-12-22 22:28:07
Color B&W
Identifier thepayoff
Sound sound
Year 1935
17
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Jigsaw (1949) - Full Film
Jigsaw
by Fletcher Markle
Publication date 1949
Usage Public DomainCreative Commons Licensepublicdomain
Topics Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Publisher Tower Pictures Inc.
The plot is about a shadowy group called the Crusaders, which has been organizing itself into a power center.
Its poster shows a handsome Aryan lad against the waving American flag.
Their slogan, "Join The Crusaders -- Fight for America!".
The implication is clear...the Crusaders will be against anyone who doesn't look, sound or believe the way that Aryan poster boy does.
When a columnist is killed while looking into the Crusaders, Howard Malloy finds himself appointed a special prosecutor. He also finds himself in a noxious mess that combines crime, nativism and the reactionary beliefs of some of the privileged few.
You can play the amusing Hollywood game of Spot the Star Cameo.
In unbilled bits that last a second or two are such luminaries as Burgess Meredith, John Garfield, Marsha Hunt, Everett Sloane, Henry Fonda and Marlene Dietrich.
Contact Information www.k-otic.com
Addeddate 2008-03-19 08:27:51
Color black & white
Director Fletcher Markle
Identifier Jigsaw_
Run time 70 min
Sound sound
Year 1949
23
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1916) - Full Film
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company was not known in the silent era as premier producer of motion pictures.
Yet, in 1916 they produced a film that could not be made effectively without expensive special effects and special photography.
The novel had previously been made as short films in 1907 by Georges Méliès and in 1913 by French company ÃÂclair.)
Marshalling the expertise underwater experts Ernest and George Williamson, Universal financed the extensive production which would require location photography, large sets, exotic costumes, sailing ships, and a full-size navigable mock-up of the surfaced submarine Nautilus.
https://archive.org/details/20000LeaguesUndertheSea
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